When Epic Exclusives Come To Steam
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
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After taking an exclusive deal with Epic Games Store, many games have hoped for a second sales bump when they eventually return to Steam, the world's largest PC gaming marketplace - but only a handful have succeeded. In this video, we'll look at how those few games pulled it off.
Is the Epic Games Store failing to capture new customers, other than those collecting free games? Is the customer experience still bad, or is it improving? Only time will tell, but I think the Epic Games Store's exclusivity deals are bad for customers, bad for gaming and bad for you.
(Player counts, reviews and review averages in this video were captured using Steam, SteamDB and Metacritic in March 2022. Player counts and user review averages may adjust over time.)
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
2:14 - Hitman 3
5:03 - Hades
7:03 - Satisfactory
9:16 - Shenmue 3
10:34 - The Outer Wilds
12:25 - Control
14:27 - Untitled Goose Game
This video contains the following music:
Fortnite - Get Ripped (I looked all over and couldn't find the artist/s - I'll update this once I do)
Hitman 3 - Mission Accomplished, composed by Niels by Nielsen
Hades - The Painful Way, composed by Darren Korb
Satisfactory - Pygmalion Effect, composed by Jannik Reuterberg
The Outer Wilds - Outer Wilds & Final Voyage composed by Andrew Prahlow
Control - Counterfeit, composed by Martin Stig Anderson & Petri Alanko
Untitled Goose Game - Preludes / Book 1, L. 117, composed by Dan Golding
This video contains clips from:
Q&A: Satisfactory Exclusive to Epic Games Store by @CoffeeStainStudios
• Q&A: Satisfactory excl...
Releasing Satisfactory's Total Number of Sales by @CoffeeStainStudios
• Releasing Satisfactory...
This video contains game footage from: (in order of appearance)
Final Fantasy VII (Original)
Final Fantasy VII (Remake)
Fortnite
Hitman 3
Hitman 2
Metro Exodus
Hades
Pyre
Bastion
Transistor
Satisfactory
Factorio
Civilization VI
Stardew Valley
Goat Simulator
Shenmue 3
The Outer Wilds
Control
Quantum Break
Borderlands 3
Untitled Goose Game
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Epic's fans have been posting the same four points in the comments, and I can't keep reposting the same responses, so if I sent you here, you said at least one of these.
"I'm angry that Steam takes 30%". - Amazon, WalMart, Best Buy, Apple's App Store, Google Play, PlayStation Store, XBox, Nintendo eShop and more all take 30%, as do plenty of other e-commerce platforms. Steam did not invent the 30% cut. Epic started pushing the 30% cut as bad to push their own platform as an alternative. And it's fine if Epic's competitive messaging pushes them taking a lower cut - I have no problem with Epic offering a 12% cut. But Steam is not abhorrently price gouging, Steam are taking an industry standard cut for aggregating their customer base.
"Steam is a monopoly." - It isn't. You do not have to publish your game on Steam. There are plenty of other stores, including Epic, Humble Store, GOG, Itch and more where you could publish instead. However, as a customer, I believe Steam delivers a superior customer experience, and so I and many others prefer to buy on Steam. The market has rewarded them accordingly. So you would be sacrificing access to a significant number of customers by bypassing Steam, but nothing is stopping you if you prefer not to be on Steam.
Since a number of you still don't believe me, here's the definition of a monopoly. You need to have exclusive control of a commodity or service to be a monopoly, and as mentioned above, there are multiple other storefronts to buy PC games without going through Steam, therefore, Steam is not a monopoly, no matter what Tim Sweeney tells you. He lies to you so that you will do his marketing for him.
www.dictionary.com/browse/monopoly
"Steam should have competition." - I'm fine with competition. This is the opposite of competition. Competition would be placing a game on every store, and letting customers choose which store provides them the most value. Epic has taken away your choice because they know if they competed fairly, most customers would choose Steam. Why would you defend a company that paid to take away your choice as a consumer?
"Exclusives are the only way Epic can compete with Valve." - Then they don't deserve to compete. Seriously, if your business plan does not offer any alternative benefit (and Epic doesn't, there is no advantage to me to split my collection between Steam and Epic), and your strategy is just to make your customer's experience on their preferred platform worse, you have a poor plan - and your business does not deserve to succeed. Epic is not owed success just because they opened a store, they have to earn that success. And they haven't. Epic is trying to buy a seat at the table they didn't earn, and I'm glad their reputation has suffered for it. I hope it continues to as long as exclusives are part of their strategy. If Epic wants to win over customers, they have to do SOMETHING better than Steam, instead of just trying to make Steam worse - and annoying the same customers they are trying to win over.
Hey man, for some reason this comment's not pinned anymore
@@felps_4500 Holy smokes, you were right. Thank you! Repinned!
"Steam is a monopoly." - It isn't. ... LOL sure bro. Keep believing that.
@@lolmao500 You are welcome to offer a rebuttal?
I don’t spend any money on Epic but I do grab there free weekly games.
If anything I may be taking money by only getting free games lol.
Epic's one fatal flaw is not understanding that Steam isn't just a games market, it's a whole social lounge. Steam's community side is almost as prevalent as its game market side, and just as polished. The UI might be simple and, dare I say, outdated, but it's familiar, functional, and accessible.
And if they’d offer an improvement on the community side, that would at least be an alternate value proposition from Steam. They’re actively not doing that though. Their reviews are so toothless that they can cover up the fact that most of their exclusives are awful.
I forgot where I saw or heard this, but someone brought up that besides fortnite, they've never heard of any epic exclusive games get out into the wider gaming culture like steam games do, majorly in part because of the community side. Since I'm not on the epic store I can't even tell you what games are epic exclusives because they as might as well as not exist, that's how little exposure they are getting to the wider gaming community.
yeah, and stram has had a huge start over epic in developing their platform. Epic will eventually get there. wont be overnight. What does Valve do besides Steam? Epic does way more, so I could understand EGS wont be an overnight competitor to Steam
@@tylergorzney8499 you'r serious? What does valve do beside steam?
They develop proton for example, made the steam Deck, developed some of the best and most influential games ever...
Edit: epic does way more? Lol 😂
@@MrDasfried I think he's talking about all the stuff they do for unreal engine, which for me it's kinda of sad that they neglect their own game store front when we know how capable they can be.
The problem with the Epic Game Store is the same problem with Google Stadia or that Amazon thing everyone forgot about. They're not actually a competitor in the market, they just bought their way in and expected players to flock to them for merely existing. Steam spent 20 years building a service people like, you're not winning those same people over with a less functional knockoff version.
Steam was there first. They won by being first and not shitting the bed, that's the only thing they had to do.
They literally _launched with one of the biggest games ever_ and yet people keep pretending they're successful because of "better service." No, they're successful because they launched with fucking Half Life 2 and nobody else was doing it yet.
@@shingshongshamalama
Service is absolutely better. Can’t get a refund anywhere else on the online market. Not without going through a customer support process. Steam lets me do it no questions asked as long as I fulfill the requirements. Not to mention, the legendary Steam workshop which makes modding many games a breeze. There’s a whole bunch of other features I don’t even use, but they’re there if you want em.
They were first, yes, and that does give them a headstart. But the headstart means nothing if you don’t keep running. Valve has hardly sat on their laurels, they just continue to provide good service. You just say “don’t shit the bed” as if that’s an easy task, and evidently from what we’ve seen over the years that seems to be quite difficult.
The fact anyone tries to claim Epic is competition proves they don't know what they're talking about. You don't compete by being an inferior version of the thing you're trying to compete with. GOG is an actual example of competition for Steam, thanks to their zero DRM policies and allowing you to download backups.
@@shingshongshamalama this is the worst take I've ever read
@@shingshongshamalama galaxy brain take XD
Very well said
"if you complain about it online, but buy the product anyway, you're only encouraging them to do so"
This applies to every product
Not just games
True. Voting with your wallet is all that matters to companies that could care less about satisfied customers.
True. That's why I keep telling morons to stop voting. The system is corrupt. Stop consenting to it by voting.
Im surprised you didnt discuss the person who made a game on his own, got offered by epic and rejected it, only for the opposite to happen and his game was essentially black listed from their stores instead because he refused their deal
I think that was the game Darq? Funnily enough, they did end up selling it on both Steam and EGS. (No exclusivity.)
"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates."
Epic is not providing a better service than steam, and isnt even a better service than the pirates
Oh yeah. Just Denuvo for example. It is known that this antipiracy software makes the performance of the game worse. Since pirates eventually crack it and free the game from it, the pirated version runs better than the one you pay.
The pirates do not care about 'exclusivity' and other landlubber legalese nonsense. That's why they are superior to Epic, basically all anime streaming services, and probably a couple other things I couldn't care about too.
And their games aren't encoded at all, so all Epic releases get cracked day one...
Actual reason I buy games I can easily pirate on steam so get all the nice stuff like cloud and stuff
They'd steal no matter what.
Broke scum bags all over who believe rules don't apply to them
Or they don't work , so they don't care if they stole another's work
"Eagerly awaiting the game to escape from jail" perfectly put, that's exactly how it feels.
Right? It’s like they’re just delaying launch by a year.
@@KevinHelpUs The problem with all that is that it makes it worth for the developers to do it, getting cash from Epic, and a year later people still buy it on Steam too, so for the most part unless they really go out of their way to antagonize the players they make even more money from both the Epic upfront cash, and Steam sales. In a way they are not learning a lesson, because we are not teaching them one by just boycotting them if they decide to go the exclusive way.
But that would take some collective understanding and agreement, which in our fractured and tribal society is hard to accomplish.
@@m4nt1c0r3s It would, we’d have to be better at banding together and sending a unified message. And looking around society, we are not good at that.
Still waiting for Kingdom Hearts to get out... I had forget about it, but yeah it's been MORE THAN TWO YEARS already! Square Enix got plenty of money with that one uh
@@PetitTasdeBoue It has to be tied up in licensing. No way Square-Enix leaves all that money on the table.
Steams contributions to the open source community is also worth a lot too. There are games I got for free on Epic only to end up buying on steam so I can play them more easily on my Linux desktop.
Proton is mostly open source, Lutris uses Proton to run EPIC games and other launchers on linux. Valve created software that makes Epic games more useful.
Valve isn't perfect but no other platform has resisted the enshitification of the internet as much as valve has.
I bought a game on Epic since it was on sale. MISERABLE EXPERIENCE. I eill re-buy it on Steam and now that I am on linux, ill prioritise GOG and Steam above all
Why@@Omega-mr1jg
@@chechilex3770 Epic outright refuses to support linux and in fact is preventing it from working in their own in-house games, they lack a linux specific client, leading to people using heroic client as a replacement.
They are also limiting games onto staying on their platform and epic hosts no community oriented content such as mods forums or groups like steam does,
plus steam has linux in its best interest, and gog allows anyone to run the apps they have sold allowing linux users to still play the game using wine
Regardless of every other terrible problem the EGS has, their worst crime is siding with publishers over customers by selling their lack of customer reviews as a feature to them. That tells you every thing you need to know about why you don't want to buy from Epic.
Yep, if your priority is hiding from your own customers, your games must be garbage.
They randomly ask for reviews from players, I saw reviews on epic store
Steam also gets major points from me for eschewing exclusives and their support of gaming on Linux. They have a native Linux Steam client and Proton is a compatibility revelation. The Epic Store isn't officially supported on Linux at all, although Epic *is* making an effort to support Linux for developers using their Unreal Engine and (barf) Easy Anti-Cheat.
Definitely. Their approaches towards Linux have been night and day different.
Steam's killer feature for me is its unrivaled controller support. No other platform lets me use any controller of my choice with such extensive customization. Only Steam makes it easy for me to tweak my controls while in game and add custom gyro controls. That's why I'm an early adopter of the Steam Deck and doing my best to show off what Steam Input is capable of. It's insane to me how few people know of its existence after so many years.
And on top of that, the Deck is doing more than ever to push Linux gaming and chip away at Microsoft's monopoly on the OS used for PC gaming.
For the longest time the entire fucking PC market was Steam exclusives, and there is still tons of games that are only on Steam.
People just forgot how everything started, but Steam single-handedly murdered used PC game market, built a monopoly that lasted for years and was so strong that even when the competition came, a lot of games still launch exclusively on Steam. But I guess Stockholm syndrome hit PC gamers hard.
@@A_B_1917 Buddy. Friend. Steam exclusives are only exclusives because they choose not to go to other platforms. *Nobody* forces them to be on steam. However, Epic is PAYING people additional money to be on their platform and its a SIGNED contract that disallows the game from leaving the platform. I would be a bit salty if a game I wanted *chose* to be on a platform that isn't steam, but only a select few would be raving about it. NOT HALF THE F_CKING INTERNET. But games don't truly CHOOSE to be on EPIC. Usually, their publishers see that giant paycheck and go: "$$$ :O" and then the game's NOT ALLOWED to leave that platform for however long exclusivity lasts. I'll reiterate one last time: STEAM EXCLUSIVES ARE NOT FORCED TO BE ON STEAM. THEY *CHOOSE* TO BE ON STEAM.
@@TDOPB Buddy, as a customer, I don't give a damn. End result is the same, I'm forced to buy the game on the specific source, Steam or Epic.
And companies choose Steam due to money too, thanks to it's years of being effectively a monopoly Steam has gathered such an enormous customer base, that not releasing there is a financial suicide for a gaming company.
Hell, as Steam was first it's effects were far worse, it murdered used games market on PC.
Epic brought to the PC table what Xbox, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, and Atari were doing for consoles for years. It's bad form, it's greed, and especially if a Kickstarter reneges on a promise they made, the Kickstarter supporter has every right to their money.
crapic wanted to be likea console but on PC wich failed miserably
good ending
sucks for them that metacapitalism doesnt work on the internet
im fine waiting a few days for a crack, id rather spend that $70 on humble bundles and increase my steam library with dozens of games
Kickstarter owes you nothing. You clearly don't read. It's 100% on you. Whatever you back on kickstarter is 100% your problem
Well I don't think Epic is pushing to be the only digital seller of games on PC like consoles do with their consoles game stores. They're trying to compete with Steam because it's so huge. Steam has actually made more pushes towards that with products like the Steam Deck. I love my deck but it's a little irritating that I have to move my games to my Steam library to play them console like side instead of just having games presorted. They're trying to be Google but for PC games. They're trying to create a monopoly
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 Dude, No one is blaming the company Kickstarter, they are saying the people from Kickstart who makes the promises about being in it the steam is their fault, imagine, a cool game you see, being developed, and the owner says if you donate [Insert amount] they will give you an early access for steam, then ALL OF THE SUDDEN They break that PROMISE, and won't do it anymore that's literally money down the drain especially for those who donated more than 100 dollars, pretty annoying
Why I don't use epic is because of their launcher. It is so heavy. It prioritizes updating itself over loading and letting the user use the client first. Steam works beautifully offline. As a traveller I highly appreciate the steam client being responsive at all times, regardless if you are online/offline or how slow your internet is. The games can be played offline granted that you run it once in a while online. The epic launcher is heavy and a mess, and doesn't have the crazy sales steam does. I have attachment to both storefronts as my libraries have grown over the years, but steam takes the cake because of ease and convenience.
Yes! I’m traveling right now and don’t always have internet and using Steam has been a breeze.
Booting a game directly doenst suffers from it.
Down with DRM locked software.
Buy from GOG instead
@@SimonWoodburyForget steam deck brings the DRM built in. Did you forgot its name?
Yeah and I never had to update steam after bluescreen in my faceit CS2 match and waste 30 seconds right
Not defending EGS tho, it's just Steam is not perfect.
@vrnvorona No platform is perfect, including Steam.
This isn't a problem for me in the slightest, because I rarely play games on release anyway. I have such a massive backlog that I'm regularly playing starting games that came out years ago. Case in point: I only started The Outer Wilds a few weeks ago!
There was a time when playing games on release was useful, but now it's just paying to be part of the QA process.
Truth. And you’re gonna love Outer Wilds.
@@KevinHelpUs I've already played and loved it. Now onto the spooky DLC!
just that its not a problem for you doesn't mean its magically not a problem lol
@@egbert5871 what does playing a game on release get you?
It gets you bugs and disappointment.
Patient gamers FTW!
I also wanna point out that Epic wanted the developers of Terraria to delist their game on Steam and release it on the Epic store, the Terraria chads denied the deal and as a consequence, they skipped their trailer on the E3.
Oh man, Terraria has some hardcore fans, people would have rioted.
in what world would relogic ever agree to that??? it's Terraria!!! it's literally the best selling game on steam ever (I think??)!! and they have such tight integration with the steam workshop now too, epic has nothing at all that compares to that. and also, it's re logic, who quite famously threatened to not release their game on stadia because Red's Google account got locked, and only backed down from that once it was fixed. those guys don't take shit from anybody at all what did epic actually expect??
Really? What the fuck, did not know that. Terraria is one of if not my favorite game
@@ajaxmaxbitch now it can be even more of your favourite for the Devs being such chads!! it's the 10th best selling game of all time, the amount they were offered had to have been a LOT of money, and they turned it down anyway
I hate Tim Sweeny with a passion. He is such a petty, temper-tantrum-throwing manchild.
Most of my problem with Epic is their Launcher, It's too slow and unoptimized compared to Steam which is much faster. Gabe is kinda right, Piracy is a Service Problem
He's half right. Piracy is absolutely a pricing problem. But also service.
Edit: to elaborate for example, Jedi Survivor is 1599mxn for me (base game, not even deluxe) which is 91.07 usd. 91! Who the hell would buy that, when people get on average like 120 per week?
Even if the launcher was great, that is not enough to topple Steam or get more than a tiny amount of market share.
Source: Galaxy being the best launcher for PC games, especially for people who don't commit to buying all of their games in the same place like good little consumers.
PS: good on Valve for Steam integration in Galaxy working as well as it does, btw, I'm sure if they wanted they could kill it, but they don't. Thanks Valve.
yeah, i had evoland: legendary edition on epic (which i got for free) and then i pirated the steam version to play without the launcher, because im on a 14 year old refurbished thinkpad t430 with windows 7 and epic doesn't run too well
fast forward Today. Piracy IS the solution with all the scummy moves these publishers pulling. Thats how you OWN FOR REAL a Digital Game.
I remember hearing the term benign monopoly used to describe steam which i find to be pretty accurate (in sentiment at least since steam isn't a true monopoly). They might have a few skeletons in the closet and a few missteps over the years but overall they have built a high level of trust of the gaming community in the last 2 decades by not doing shitty things and giving a user-friendly experience. That is very impressive amount of time and anyone familiar with the situation with Creative Assembly is aware of how quickly things can go downhill when your community loses trust in you.
I really bloody wish it was anyone other than epic competing with steam since there are some valid criticisms of steam and the 30% take and possible changes to allow for smaller developers to pay less for their first million or so in revenue but Epic is poisoning those discussions. Competition is good but only when the competitor isn't toxic.
My main problem with epic games launcher is that they haven’t updated their UI format since before they sold 3rd party games. So you have this large UI that was designed to play a couple of games made by Epic and now you have hundreds of games on it.
"Epic has created a problem to sell you the solution." Couldn't have been said better. So many anti-consumer practices can be summed up with that. Instead of actually improving, and in turn, enticing you to use their product/service over the competition, most large companies nowadays seem more inclined to just force you into a corner where you have no choice but to reluctantly use theirs instead.
Why compete with the competition when you can just eliminate them? You could work hard, train long and arduous hours to win the race, but why do that when you could just shoot your opponent in the knee? A race is a lot easier to win if your opponent can’t run! Even if the audience hates the show, that’s not what matters right? No-the only thing that matters is winning! By any means necessary.
I yearn for the day it comes to backfire on all of them.
Well said. None of this is competition. Competition would be putting the game out on both stores, and letting customers decide. I think they know very well that most customers would choose Steam, so they have to resort to tactics like this because they can't win fairly.
People argue that steam has a monopoly, so it's fair. Bitch what do you think exclusivity is ? It's a fkn monopoly.
@@KevinHelpUs Yeah, why do you think Corporations are out bidding themselves to buy out IPs to lock them behind paywalls, like Microsoft is trying to do on Game Pass, or Netflix/Disney/Amazon are trying to do on the movie/tv space. Its not about making better products, because that takes time and effort, its about getting the already established IPs that people love, and locking them behind their services, and because its made out of greed not out of passion it just ends up cannibalizing said franchises for a quick nostalgia cash grab before finding the next thing to kill, so yeah, greed, and more recently wokeness is whats killing our hobbies.
You say it, this bs is everywhere in our world. Why be mad at the syndrom and not the cause? Capitalism is obviously broken and we are all just wage slaves at this point. Its acceptable bc they established a decently liveable form of slavery but at the same time throwing us only a small proportion of the cake while keeping the rest
For sure.
15:23 "but as long as [Epic] is willing to write checks for 10 million dollars".
Only for the AAAs. The Epic v. Apple lawsuit has shown that Epic only pay about 100k for indies to go EGS exclusive.
One of them even got paid only 44k for the exclusive
@@Ferax2k10 HAHA, good luck with that. Only an idiot would take that offer unless your game is so bad you think nobody is going to buy it. 44k isn't enough for shit unless you're the only dev working on it and no other expenses than you spending time on it.
I do wonder tho how much releasing Control on Epic exclusively has hurt it's sales, I've literally never heard anyone mention that game outside of when you could claim it for free on Epic and even then none I know has actually played it while they got it for free on Epic... Did anyone play that game? I did do a quick google search and supposedly it sold 3 million copies but that includes consoles.
Imagine selling your integrity And helping out a chinese Company for $100000. That aint even enough for one person to retire on.
@@SECURITEH that's some pretty sad numbers, considering RE4 Remake outsold that in 3 days.
I now use Epic's anti-consumer exclusivity deal as a litmus test for whether a game is actually good or just mediocre-at-best. While there have been a few exceptions to the rule, if a game takes the exclusivity deal its usually not worth buying unless at a deep discount. The exclusivity deal, in my eyes, is the publishers (AAA or indie) determining their game is not that good, fearing it won't sell well, and trying to take the guaranteed pay out from Epic. Epic has saved me a lot of time and money with their scummy anti-consumer practices. Silver linings, and all that.
yup, wether that is what (indie) devs think or not, it smells like insecurity in your own game's polish and fun.
On top of that, it also works to make me wait 6-12 months to make sure I really do want to play that game
I can forgive indie devs who have a tight budget and limited resources/manpower - assuming they've made no previous promises about releasing on Steam at launch.
It can be hard to compete with the big titles, and I'm not gonna hassle the small fish for selling out to properly fund their project (and pay their employees a fair wage).
But when it just comes down to greed - especially if it's a company with a history of underpaying and overworking their devs - I've reached the limit of my sympathy.
yeah its a reflag concerning a studio decision on epic it questions accountability of their product
The lower prices on EGS feels like a honey pot trap. Once they have enough people (more than steam), they are going to raise the prices. especially since Epic is still bleeding money to make those low prices happen.
why honey trap? you act like you can't buy on steam. Just buy at the store that have cheaper games(gog,steam,epic).
This is why competition is good.
Valve is not even an angel. Look at CSGO. no updates until valorant came. Monopoly is bad.
@@Katniss0000 Monopoly is bad but building another monopoly is also just as bad.
I find it so hilarious that epic LOVES to point at other companies calling them out for monopolistic practices, just so they can get a chance to get a monopoly of their own.
Tim is smart enough to know he’s being a hypocrite, he just hoped you and I aren’t smart enough to see it.
@@KevinHelpUs Positioning a company to compete is not trying to get a monopoly. Trying to buy Steam would be a monopoly strategy.
@@SrWho1234 Compete by losing a ton of money? Compete by forcing itself into the market using money? Compete by applying monopolistic strategies like paying for exclusive distribution rights? Sir, this isn't competing, it is an attempt at industrial pay to win!
@@donotatme It's very normal to insert yourself into the market by losing money, Uber was losing money for many years And now there is even more apps that compete against Uber, like Lyft.
Paying for exclusive distribution is not a monopolistic strategy, since it allows you to enjoy the game just fine, without leaving Steam (it's just a browser or a launcher bro, you can still use it)
@@SrWho1234 and their meeting they specifically said they want to replace steam monopoly not compete steam monopoly
What a lot of publishers and such don't seem to realize is that Steam's client does a lot of things way better. It has a built-in overlay for all your games to access friends, messages, recently played with players in online games, quick settings like an FPS counter, and much more that isn't available on many other clients, forcing devs to either entirely rely on an in-house implementation that's often subpar or to scrap those features altogether. You can't even message people or talk through voice chat without being in a game using Epic's software!
Absolutely. You get a lot of value for that 30%!
@@KevinHelpUs nope, the value is relative. They should charge you for those features instead. And bill it likewise.
@@YuriMomoiro Platforms aren’t - nor have they ever been - a la carte like that?
@@KevinHelpUsMaybe someday
@@YuriMomoiro console player detected lol
“Buy from us or we’ll make your experience worse” you hit the nail on the head
Loved the description of Satisfactory there. I was one of those who awaited the steam release, refusing to buy from Epic... not wanting my details or game access in Chinese hands... which, if Tencents is involved, it will be.
One reason, btw, that Coffee Stain gave, was that releasing primarily on Epic, allowed cross platform gaming, but going the other way would have prevented that. Either way, doesn't matter, since it's still some way off releasing, even now.
So stay strong guys... let the Epic customers test it for you... if nothing else, you can enjoy a more bug-free game at their expense. And if they pull that 'on sale at Epic at the Steam release' crap, just wait for the first Steam sale and get it then... you waited this long, right?
Well said!
It's like how I feel about console and graphics card scalping, if everyone would refuse to pay a penny over the MSRP, the bs would be belly up in a month.
This doesn't just affect Steam. It also impacts smaller stores as well. They can't compete with Epic for exclusively.
True. Although, I’ve seen Epic exclusive games still releasing on GOG or elsewhere, the deal seems to be “just exclude Steam users”.
@@KevinHelpUs Which sounds why worse than buying the exclusivity for their Store
They are not just paying for the exclusivity, they are paying to deny that game on the rival platform, it doesn't seems as a fair competition at all
I don't think it's that bad. I wouldn't even have known about gog without the epic game store telling me about it. Epic just trying to convince people to try their launcher since their is basically no reason at all to try out other launchers after installing steam.
@@frostyheat6746 buying exclusives is a pretty malicious way of inviting users to try their platform. I'm left wondering why they don't bolster their end user experience and try to provide a better overall service than steam but instead their platform is a barbones store front.
I don't mind that they tried giving steam competition as that would likely push steam to improve but the way epic went about it was absolutely the wrong way.
I wish they would just go back to making games in the unreal universe but they shit canned that, too.
Epic "we are the good guys trying to stop steam form having a monopoly, but making games exclusive to us so you HAVE to come to use for the games
I'm simple guy living in India & I don't buy games from Epic because they won't let me buy the games. Their store has 2 payment methods, Credit Card & Paypal. In India, Debit Card is prefer over Credit Card and I still don't understand why I can't buy games via Paypal (Btw last game I've purchased via Paypal was Division 2 on Uplay). Abt other stores including 3rd party sites as GMG, Fanatical & Humble Bundle, my card & internet banking works on their payment methods.
This needs more up votes. Anyone that doesn’t even acknowledge this problem prove their mindset is stuck on Westerners.
I am also from India . I bought game using credit card in both steam and Epic . But I only bought 1 game in epic which is refunded to credit card . Steam is better .
Really? I'm living in US and I only have a debit card, idk if it's diff in India but I can def use a debit card here
@@rewpertcone8243 yes, Debit Card in India is different. Mine is SBI which is an Indian Govt bank that has different restriction from other Private banks. None the less My Card is still usable in Steam, GOG, Ubisoft (though Paypal only), Xbox app, & even in 3rd party website such as humble Bundle, Fanatical & Greenman gaming.
Epic store doesn't have any excuse to not support my card or Internet Banking.
You can use your debit as credit
I don’t mind smaller studios with less money taking a deal with Epic. They likely need time and money to continue development and make the game even better when it does come to steam. A game like Hitman however has a huge audience so it’s annoying when developers who already have plenty of resources limit the audience the game will reach. As for kickstarter games, I think the developers there should listen to their backers and release the game we’re they want it too, which will likely be steam.
Epic "we don't want steam to have a monopoly"
Also Epic "lets try to make AS many games exclusive to the Epic Store to try and push us being a monopoly by making people have to come to use for games "
Yep, I’m fine with competition but this is the opposite of competing.
@@KevinHelpUsepic is the company to whine about monopoly while doinf the practices which are monopolising
This reminds me when an indie dev refused Epic's deal, he not only got praised af, but his game sold so much, he made a the DLC free just to thank the people who bought the game, wish I remembered the name of the game
Pretty sure it was Darq!
@@KevinHelpUs Yeah, that's the one, thanks
the guys who owned splitgate did this and their game died
@@paper7263 just tbf I only remember the game being relevant for less than two weeks then i never seen it again besides the news they sold out. Im pretty sure they sold out because they thought it was their last chance to revive it
@@lenyv I didnt know they ended up selling but it definetly was too late, all im saying is because its such an established company with such a large playerbase on their own games, wether that being mostly kids, they have the power to revive games and thats something most game bases cant do. The free games are also great and the marketplace where other developers can sell their games isnt awful either. Fortnite is becoming an unreal engine showcase game and im sure epic is trying to focus on just unreal and are giving out these freebies for people who are still around and using the platform
I have never bought a game on Epic, but I have been taking the free games from time to time, so I now have 68 games on there. I'm not sure if it's worth it though since I've never actually played any of the free games I grabbed on Epic.
Don't do that, you're just another number to them then - it shows they have an "active" user and they use that to help secure more exclusives.
@@iRhyiku Are you sure? Am I really a useful bargaining chip to them when I've never contributed to thir revenue stream?
@@JeppeBeier yes for you're another active user which is what the investors care about and what publishers also care about
@Something Diabolical The free games are mainly a ploy to get people on the platform because they are more likely to start buying games when they are already there. Similar to discounted products in the grocery store.
@@JeppeBeier When wooing potential investors, they just neglect to mention the fact that most people getting the free games aren't spending money. Instead, they talk about their "growing user base".
In a hilarious coincidence, youtube just suggested this video to me a year after it was posted, just like buying a former epic exclusive on steam.
You have NO idea. This video literally didn’t break 10k views until a year after release. It hit one year and blew up, so…thanks, Epic?
My beef with Epic began 2 years before they open the EGS, for 3 years the community was developing Unreal Tournament 4 alongside Epic, we were happy doing our part till 2017, but when Fortnite blew up they immediately pulled the plugged on the game, instead allocating some funds to continue the development of the game with the community they decided to leave in development hell till this very day, all the free hard work from the community thrown in the trash overnight... Not only that but they erased Unreal Tournament from history books by removing the franchise from every store that was available...
I am so glad they are failing at everything; their exclusivity deals haven't paid off; they haven't turned a profit in 5 years, Apple pissed all over them in court and Google will do the same soon.
Tim Sweeney is a cancer for the gaming industry and let me explain why, when Epic signed with MS to make the Gears of War franchise on 360 some of Epic employees started bashing the PC platform, Valve and (Blizzard 2000s) were the only ones who believed it, if it wasn't for Steam the platform would have died a long time ago.
When MS finished their deal with Epic, Tim Sweeney started talking smack about MS wanting to block steam and blah blah blah, I find it IRONIC that MS after 2016 started releasing all their games on the platform and Epic was the one blocking Steam releases by buying exclusivity deals with greedy publishers.
The results are in, Epic is doing horribly in the financial department, letting 800+ go at once is a sign of things to come... In my eyes THEY DESERVER ALL THE HATE THEY CAN GET, we all know ppl only have Epic accounts just to get free shit and Fortnite for children.
Well said!
Steam may act sorta as a monopoly as it doesnt really have competition, yet valve is super pro consumer.
They provide tons of sales, offer many great services and all for free (i mean you technically have to buy a game to use them, but its basically free)
Thing is, it may be a soft monopoly due to the amount of attention it has basically black holed from competitors, but nothing is actually stopping people from buying games on other websites. Heck, for more 'niche' oriental games, the only real way you're finding them is by navigating a sea of mysterious moon runes, fucking around with applocal, downloading new fonts, and no small amount of google translate.
Altough a lot of things can be worked around if you haven't spend any money on steam yet.
For example if you make a new Steam account and didn't spend like 5 or 10 bucks (can't remember exactly how muhc) yet you can't add any friends yourself but they can still add you acting as a workaround.
I'm fairly sure the restrictions on accounts that haven't spent any money is about protecting legitimate users from bots and spam anyway, not greed.
@@NabsterHax i never said it was greed
@@NabsterHax Probably so I mean it's just like 5 or 10 bucks if I remember that correctly
Metro Exodus had a similar thing happen where a couple months before it launched on Steam Epic got exclusivity for it. That meant everyone who preordered on Steam was essentially forced to wait an extra year. A lot of users just refunded their preorders because they didn't want to wait anymore. An exciting sales figure also emerged that Metro sold more copies on consoles which haven't happened before for any other Metro game.
Yep, that whole scenario was nonsense. I’m glad they’ve seen the money wasn’t worth the headache, and the game’s sold well on Steam once it FINALLY got there.
I think they actually provided the game to people that preordered on steam if memory serves me right, or might have been another game. They just never put it up for sale on steam after the launch date, and the other problem is that they used steam store page and platform to promote the game, and pulled it right before launch to make it exclusive, its what even got Valve pissed enough to change their policies if you make store page for you game you cant remove it to go to another place.
@@m4nt1c0r3s You are right. Preorders were able to download the game but you were unable to do a new preorder or purchase until the official Steam release date. Similar to how you can redownload delisted Steam games if you had them before.
@@m4nt1c0r3si remember that as well, I was so pissed when I saw the news about the move over to epic but if you preorded, you still be able to play the game on steam. But it was still a shady move on epic's side
Here's my experience. When Satisfactory came out, Markiplier and other youtubers were playing it. Got me excited to play it too. But when it finally released on Steam, the game's hype for me died, and I removed it from my Steam wishlist. That said, I don't want/need another game launcher, so I'm never getting the not so "epic" game launcher.
I’ve been saying this for years: if you want this to stop, quit supporting it. Vote with your wallet because money is the only language our corporate overlords understand
Preach!
I would hope devs would catch on eventually that the Epic Store exclusivity is a generally a bad deal, since they're alienating a part of their consumer base, getting some free negative publicity and for most games being unavailable for purchase for a year can make people forget the game even existed if it's nothing absolutely top tier.
Looking at the number of and quality of exclusives, I think they are. A number of devs that took the deal in the past aren’t returning for round two.
Funny enough that I actually forgot about Darkest Dungeon 2 despite being a really big fan of the first game. Epic truly is the shadowy alley where games go to disappear, only to return with little fanfare.
@@lavendersmallarmscompany Wait it went exclusive? LOL, didn't even know it existed until it suddenly appear of steam with somewhat mediocre score. Yea now I'm for sure not buying that even on sale.
If any dev, indie or otherwise, wishes to bite the EGS bullet, they need to have a roadmap of content development that will ultimately be bundled together for the Steam launch as a definitive edition, open communication with their potential customers about concerns regarding EGS, and ensure that the EGS & Steam releases are priced relatively fairly with eachother over time to ensure one side of the PC playerbase isn't saddled with a raw deal.
@@legoferrari14 Even then I think that's a hard road to take. We live in the era of instant gratification. I don't disagree with you, But I can see a whole lot of pitfalls no matter how well You work and how well you communicat
Also wanna mention GOG in this whole thing. GOG provides an alternative to Steam, it doesn't try to do the same thing as Steam, and it doesn't ask for exclusivity. Steam gives you a one-app-does-all thing, makes buying, downloading, updating and cloud save storage a breeze while giving you a whole community to interact with. GOG doesn't have nearly as much and their app is optional, but the thing about GOG is you can download installers that are DRM-free that you can just dump on any PC of your choosing, and GOG also specializes in old games that Steam doesn't sell at all, which are also DRM-free. The point here, is that GOG knows it can't compete with Steam, so it doesn't. It offers a similar service, but it will do things that Steam doesn't, and doesn't try to strong-arm people to buy from them instead of Steam. Some people don't like the requirement of launching everything through the Steam App or needing to be online most of the time (yes, Offline Mode is a thing, but it's inconsistent at times). They want unfettered access to their games, even 100% offline, especially older games. I myself use GOG mostly for old games (it is right there in the Title, "Good *OLD* Games"), but I can see the appeal of buying newer stuff that you can just deploy on any PC anywhere without having to worry about the day the service might stop and not having the ability to run/play/etc your games anymore. Epic? Epic wants to be Steam but is clearly not Steam, and they just throw money at devs to get them to promise not to sell anywhere else. They don't care about delivering a good product to their customer, or providing a reason to go with them instead of their competition. They're not interested in providing any sort of value that the others don't. They only care about your money, and that's it.
yea GOG always come seconds
There are even games like HOMM3 that are on both stores but everyone "in tue know" buys on GOG because then you can use all the mods easily.
@@tymondabrowski12 Never messed around with HOMM3, but I love that GOG remains the easiest way to get M&M4+5, 6, 7, and 8. Or, well all of them, but IMO, those are the ones to play. Especially 6 and 7 are I'd say the absolute best.
Yes. I hate Steam for forcing me to update an OFFLINE game before I can play it. An update that breaks all my mods. I would pay extra if I wouldn't have to deal with this shit.
@@AirsoftKeksTV That's, like, the one and only complaint I have against Steam. If a game is pure offline, they should allow you to choose to play the game without updating it without resorting to things like starting in offline mode or somecrap. But, I suppose they have to do that because they don't have any systems in place to differentiate between pure offline games, and online-enabled games and they don't want people cheating by intentionally running old versions of games or what-not. It doesn't happen often to me, so it's not a big deal for me personally. That, and there are easy ways around it if the devs were inclined, like adding branches of the game that you can opt-in. But this requires the devs to do that, and not every dev cares enough to.
Personally, I love Steam because of what they have done for the Linux community, what worries me about EGS is not even the exclusive deals, it's the fact that there is a big chance they will end like stadia and players lose their games, they are currently losing a shit tone of money because of all free games and exclusive deals but once those end if EGS isn't capable of retaining its users and convince them of continue to buying on EGS, I have serious doubts that they will be able to continue afloat and end up closing the store.
Despite all the smack I’ve talked, I wouldn’t want people to lose the games they’ve bought on Epic. Even if Fortnite stops paying the bills, Unreal Engine should keep them open.
Reminder for everyone, if a game is released with an epic exclusivity deal the devs already got paid, so you are within your rights to priate it and never buy it.
The worst part about it for me is, it's a barrier between me and these games. Most of these are games I know I would like, but even when they came to Steam I had lost interest and didn't care. I'm a HUGE fan of the Hitman series, I even defended the games when they were episodic. But because of the price issues you mentioned, I STILL haven't played it because of how much they dropped the ball.
That year gap is more detrimental than developers think. It means the game is released, talked about, streamed, everything. By the time it's been a year and they release it on Steam, any interest players had before has been killed by a whole year of OTHER releases that they COULD buy. If your game doesn't have the staying power to be talked about years after release, people will completely forget it ever existed.
Absolutely, if your game isn’t lightning in a bottle (and sure, a few have been), partnering with Epic makes your game irrelevant in so many players’ eyes. I can’t imagine working for years on a passion project just to sell away its potential.
I was super interested in Darkest Dungeon 2, however I now often forget it ever came out...
@@KevinHelpUs
I actually follow this practice on Steam.
I find a game which interests me on Steam, I put it on my wishlist.
Then nothing happens. A while later I file through my wishlist. What *still* interests me I buy, what doesnt gets removed from my wishlist. I do it like that because I made a couple impulse purchases which I did not touch again afterwards. This habit has so far saved me quite a bit of money
@@Legendendear True, and this helps me weed out any games that might have had enticing marketing, but ultimately weren’t all that great. If I still want them a year later when they’re probably on sale, then it’s (usually) because the game was worth getting.
All epic LITERALLY had to do:
- a "details" page with stats, screenshots, community content, news, etc. before playing the game
- allow to reroute certain games through steam for steam input / do their own PS5/Switch converters
- barebones twitter for gamers so people can share screenshots
- better big picture for the sofa, and sell PCs with epic pre-installed, partner with hardware vendors
and they'd literally be 1:1 with Steam right now, but they chose to do the things playstation is criticised for, and devs are taking their money and laughing at their face, good job!
I dont think epic understands that steam isnt just a store, they provide some of the best gaming services, period. Valve is trusted in the industry because they put the customer first and truly seem to care about what their community wants. You cant compete head to head when all youre offering is just another store front. Gamers need to feel valued.
I'm old enough to remember the original Epic Megagames. Yes, that was their original company name. "Why was it named like that?" you ask. Well, it was named that way to fool devs into thinking they were dealing with a much larger entity, so they were literally founded on a lie. I've never forgotten this watching them go back up in popularity. I will NEVER install that spy client of theirs or purchase any of their offerings. To hell with Epic.
I wasn't even born when Epic was originally founded, but I still don't forgive them for killing Unreal
"spy client" hello, what does this mean?
Their storefront. I only boot it in a VM myself.@@smolpup7395
Thank goodness they didn't have full control over the Gears of War IP, as they sold it to Microsoft years ago. I won't be surprised if Gears was available on PC as an Epic exclusive.
@@smolpup7395 Epic Games are owned by Tencent; a Chinese game company that has a *huge* share of the Mobile Game marketplace and the EGS Launcher contains Tencent's spyware.
my experience with Epic exclusives (the games that launch on EGS before Steam) is that they're ALWAYS mid at best. It ALWAYS feels like the decision to publish first on Epic is to extend their dev time, so that they can avoid an overwhelmingly negative rating on steam.
True. You’d make more money being successful on Steam even with the Epic payout. I have to assume some of these deals are due to publishers knowing their games won’t sell and trying to recoup their losses.
Exactly. The worst situation is when they're available on consoles too, since if you own the console they're available on and you buy the game on the console, you can say goodbye to any chance of refunds (Maneater - genuinely awful controls on console).
By the way, I have to thank you for the great video, most of the games you showed succesfully transferring from ESG to Steam seem to have basically done no marketing about being on ESG, or even that they released at all. Was genuinely surprised that Hades, Outer Wilds, and Untitles Goose Game were first on ESG, baffled that Shenmue 3 decided to "recoup their losses" and launch on ESG despite the fact that it's an incredibly niche game series with a pretty small and (now formerly) dedicated fanbase.
One thing that is weird with Metro Exodus, is that it was first on Steam, then backpedalled to ESG. Like, I had my pre-order for the game in my Steam library (iirc) sitting useless for like a year or two before they brought the game back to Steam, so I could download and play it. Haven't played it yet, partly because I am kind of slighted by their move, and my prior experience with ESG exclusives, as well as the fact that my rig has a GTX 980, and I want to immerse myself with good modelling, texturing, and shading, while retaining high framerate.
Once again, great vid!
I like Mechwarrior 4 game presentation, but when I look at MW5, which is an Epic exclusive first, it looks like a game plastered by tape, and doesn't look like its first teaser trailer, that actually looks cool.
This is just blatantly false, a lot of the time it's just because they're a small studio in desperate need of money and Epic gives them an offer they can't resist. There's absolutely been great games that have come out of the EGS before, such as Outer Wilds or Hades.
Well, alan wake 2 just released, very decidedly not mid. Not perfect gameplay, but anything but ordinary or mid.
I got 4 main ways of getting games:
1. buy them on steam, usually at a discount
2. buy a phisycal copy
3. get them for free (for any launcher, it's free so makes no difference to me)
4. pirate them, could be abandonware (games that can't be purchased, unless you find a physical copy for 500$ lol) or anything that I'm not sure is worth the limited amount of cash I got.
Epic's exclusivity deals just encourage me to either wait for the game to be free for a week or pirate it entirely. otherwise, it's not worth my time and money to invest into it.
While Steam is obviously better than Epic, I always prefer a platform without any DRM to either of them. If I can buy something on GoG or directly from the dev website I would do it always before resorting to Steam or Epic. In the mean time I use these stores as a catalogue.
I wish Epic was competing in the substance , having a better store and experience and add more value so Steam could be better also and everybody winning, Instead of doing this.
Everybody wished that when they started. Nobody was panning EGS when all they had was Fortnite.
But then the exclusives, the high horses, and the unwillingness to improve on lackluster features came.
@@peterneelson639 Yes but I still have every single EGS free game from the first,Shadow Complex Remastered until now. But my huge library is still on Steam
Why though? I much prefer them burning money to give us good game because no matter how good their store is most people wont buy from them so why does it matter how good the store is?
I mean even if they were still trying to do an honest try of making it as good as steam as a customer experience then I would at least give them the benefit of the doubt, but I think at least a year or two ago they just sort of froze all of their milestone goals to improve the platform and it's just been stuck in development hell because it's easier to force people to buy from you or not at all then match quality (something that ironically enough is closer to how a monopoly works then what steam does)
@@nolives If the stores good, and you aren't selling out to the chinese government, people will buy from you. If the store is bad, or you're selling out to the chinese government, people will not buy from you. Because their store is bad and they're selling out the Chinese government,. They have to do underhanded things like year long exclusives.
The moment that Epic burned their bridge with me was when they screwed over the backers of the Shenmue 3 crowdfunding campaign by making Shenmue 3 an EGS exclusive, leaving those who backed a tier that would've granted a Steam Key on launch out in the cold. Quality of the final product and opinions on crowdfunding in general aside, that move was an abuse of the trust of the backers for that game.
Definitely. I feel for the backers in these scenarios, some of the devs/publishers really showed their true colors on how much they care about your loyalty.
I was a backer on Phoenix Point Around that time and yeah, that was a fuckin' rough period.
@RAFMnBgaming Ugh, sorry about that. You guys got hosed. (I wouldn’t have suspected they would do that either.)
@@KevinHelpUs Yeah, it really killed my interest in the game in the worst possible way. While I did eventually get the steam key I was promised a year later I've never had the heart to install it.
I've never really seen (and been a part of) a game's community that level of angry at the devs before or since. And this is coming as someone currently in an on-again-off-again relationship with Kerbal Space Program 2. In retrospect I'm very impressed with how composed the community management team managed to stay through all of that.
I haven't bought any games on Epic, and have yet to pay full price when these "exclusives" get re-released on Steam. Saved me a lot of money over the years.
The only reason I use Epic, is for the free games they've got. And that's about it.
I agree with you saying Epic's whole motto is "Buy from us or we'll make your experiences worse." They seem more interested to cater to publishers than players. A store that cares more about the suppliers than the customers don't deserve our support.
Btw your voice is soothing.
They don't even cater to legit gamedevs either, because:
1. Upfront money encourage lazy development (why work when you're already paid?).
2. No reviews & comments mean no in-platform analytics from your customers.
3. No discussion & community means not only you can't talk to your players nor vice-versa, but also the players can't coordinate to fix bugs & make content for you.
Epic's model really only cater to Publishers, and that's why Ubisoft, Square Enix, Deep Silver, Saber Interactive, etc. instantly jumps into the EGS shark mouth. They don't care if their games fail, they're there for the +1 million guarantee for AAAs while indies only get about 100k guarantee average (source: Epic v. Apple documents).
@@TheRibbonRed Yeah, and they even claimed the 88/12 revenue split would lower game prices which AFAIK has not happened so far
@@calvin9706 what's even funnier is AAAs like Square Enix trying to bring 70USD games on PC (Forspoken) both on Steam & EGS.
12% cut leading to cheaper games are one of Sweeney's many lies.
*blushes* Why thank you!
@@TheRibbonRed TBH, I've never seen a cheaper game in Epic at least in my country. That alone is a deal breaker.
I rememeber one kickstarter game called "ooblets" that was promised to be released on steam, only for the game became a Epic exclusive
When people get anger about it, the devs just acted like dickheads about it and called the fans entitled and toxic when people just got more anger from their response
That game will make an excellent case study in how NOT to do PR.
Does Epic have an alternative to Steamworks and Steam Networking? One cool feature in my book is that developers can include peer-2-peer multiplayer in their games, but route it through the Steam Datagram Relay, which essentially hides anyone's IPs. On top of that, Steam Networking comes with a lobby system built in.
They do, and they require games on their store to use it instead of Steamworks. It does do cross-play to Steam, just not well. Another example of Epic making your experience a little worse for their benefit.
@@KevinHelpUs I honestly thought you were overreacting when you said "Another example of Epic making your experience a little worse for their benefit.", yet payday 2 going EOS has proved otherwise. Apparently matchmaking has gotten so bad that people keep timing out when joining lobbies, steam players pretty much can't host games anymore(or rather: steam players hosting public lobbies are discriminated against in the matchmaker), and they dropped linux support(though, I can't confirm if this is Epic's fault directly, payday 2's linux version was on an older version of the engine).
@quadrupledamage Yeah, and speaking as someone who enjoyed Payday 2, the devs have bungled a number of ports and features, but it figures that the moment they force Epic onto their game, the quality drops dramatically.
The irony that this is the company that’s sueing Apple for being anti competitive.
Yup. I’m not a fan of Apple’s either, but Epic seems fine with creating an exclusive walled garden where they run things until someone else forces it on them.
I waited so goddamn long for Oddworld Soulstorm and what happened on release? It was completely absent from steam. It broke my heart that they sold out for epic because Oddworld has been one of my all time favorite franchises. Every time this happens it just gives me another reason to never even think about touching epic's launcher
doesn't helped that it didn't perform well as a PlayStation Plus freebie.
Epic is the bad competition along with every other non steam launcher that isn't gog and itch.
Good competition brings good services to consumers that others don't. Epic just forces you to use their crap.
Excited for Bugsnax to properly release btw!
88/12 vs 80/20
@@boar6615 The larger cut given to Devs doesn't mean as much when it's on a significantly less popular platform, and that initial exclusivity deal only does so much to offset the missed potential. Steam provides a functionally-superior, pro-consumer client while GOG grants DRM-free releases making titles much more accessible.
EGS' USP of a better deal for developers may be better for customers who care about the ethical side of the modern gaming industry, beyond that it doesn't offer much else.
@@legoferrari14 so you agree it does offer something
@@boar6615 If Epic did not bring this console peasant ass practice of exclusivity, I would at least give them a second thought.
@@boar6615 Considering Steam games get WAY more exposure to consumers, it's debatable if the extra cut from sales is worth it at all. If I were a developer, I'd be mad that Epic managed to piss everyone off so royally that people will actively avoid buying the version of the game that gives me a better cut just to shit on Epic's 12%.
I bought a single game on EGS, that being Borderlands 3. Couldn't play it for three days because it got corrupted while downloading or something and it wouldn't let me restart the download because it was already downloading while not letting me stop the download because it wasn't downloading while also not letting me delete what was downloaded because nothing was downloaded. I'm sure I was an edge case but with the being my first experience I decided I defiantly wasn't directly giving them any of my money (bought the key off of humble bundle).
And as far as I can tell, the EGS really haven't seemed to have gotten much better since then. Like I know Steam is also slow adding features the community been asking for but Steam have the luxury of having basically the best launcher and they aren't the ones playing catch up.
The most important differnece is that steam is just a cool platform! You get communty maps, mod downlaods, linux support, family sharing and much more! Many people like ricing out their steam profile page becuase it is just a flex showcasing skins, game times or archievements. It's basically a social media platform for gamers!
There's no need to pay for an Epic exclusive as Epic has already paid for you.
Epic, make piracy great again.
It has always been great, kek
I suddenly don't feel bad about it anymore, they paid 10 million for control. Damn!
@@BravoRox i mean am not mad about them making control an EPIC exclusive since if Steam Launched it, it would absolutely refuse to give the game for free at all(which epic did)
@@XPERTGAMER47 I don't think you understand that steam doesn't give out free games, it is if the developers want to give it out for free, the free games you get from epic is their strategy to reel in customers.
For me it was Pheonix Point, originally offered on GoG, Steam and epic with a kickstarter. Then durring development they yanked GoG and Steam with a epic 1 year exclusivity.
That game got SO tainted because of the backer bait-and-switch that no one played it even after it came to Steam. I heard it’s decent now, but it’s hard to support a dev that would do that to their backers.
@@KevinHelpUs When a game does bait and switch marketing they get into my "never buy" list, seriously, valve should include a clause that allows them to charge the devs for marketing costs if they pull out. I'm fine with the devs coming out and saying "we're broke af and we need this money to even finish the game", as long as they don't bait and switch, but instead they always give us this corporate bs about how the exclusivity is gonna be good for the consumer and what not.
What's worse is that even if you're broke it might still be better to release on steam, because on epic you don't get ANY income until you've sold more than the exclusivity deal, so if you sold out for 100k, your game has to generate 100k (technically 112k because of the 12% cut) before you get a single cent.
@@twerkingbollocks6661 I think Valve has something similar in their agreements, believe it says you can’t advertise on Steam unless you’re releasing on Steam, but that predated EGS and they’ve been hesitant to enforce it because they’d rather not participate in Epic’s attempt to portray them as the big bad behemoth. Right or not, they’ve mostly ignored Epic, even if it means a few devs have used that to their advantage.
As far as I'm concerned, if a game is an Epic Games Store exclusive, then it doesn't have a PC port.
Agreed!
i got 1 game on epic before and- well lets just say the app was slow to respond, had clicking register issues, and weirdly slow download speeds with seemingly no way to uncap it. not only that but my computer "MAGICALLY" started to slow down in everyday general use, not by much, but still noticeable, then after i uninstall the game and epic launcher and going through my file system to manually delete anything left behind my computer "MAGICALLY" went back to normal performance. This was back in like 2021 i believe, nothing like a little tech magic to turn someone off using your app even to save 30-100 bucks on random free games they give out every few months or something
I love how epic games is facilitating anti-consumer behavior and people are all for it The point is to be able to choose where you want to buy things it's good to have multiple platforms not good when you pay millions of dollars to make sure you don't have competition.
Yep, I have no problem with competition, but this ain’t it.
So, you're saying that you would go and make an epic account to buy a game for the same price when you could just buy it on steam. That's like saying that if all the shows were on Netflix, you'd still have a Disney+ subscription just for the fun of it. Exclusivity exists in literally every economy (that comes to mind at least, there may be a couple niche ones where this doesn't apply but that's besides the point) but gamers are just too lazy and want everything in the same place. This is literally the exact same stuff that audible is getting away with now with their authors.
@@acomfyslugcat If Epic actually made a better product, then sure, maybe I'd start using it. But imagine if to view certain websites you couldn't use whatever browser you wanted, you had to use Microsoft Edge. Or maybe some movie is only available at AMC theaters. That would suck. I wish movies were on all streaming services, so I could pick the one with the best features. This already exists for music streaming; it's rare to have a song be exclusive to one platform. A game storefront especially makes exclusivity annoying though because you have to launch that storefront every time you want to play that game, so it's much easier to have them consolidated. I don't want my only copy of a game to be stuck on the inferior Epic Games Store. It's not lazy to protest/boycott because of a business practice that makes your experience with a game worse. That's your right as a consumer. Audible is also a terrible company that shouldn't be doing that, and plenty of people have spoken up about it.
@@acomfyslugcat Epic isn't competition. Tim may wish they were, but Epic is going to need to put in some real effort if they ever want the EGS to anything more than "We have Steam at home".
There have been 5 games that have launched exclusively on epic that I have really wanted, only one of which I bought later on Steam, and then at 60% off. When a whole year has gone by I have either forgotten about it or lost interest in the game.
I would think that others are like me and that this is going to hurt total games sold.
This will probably in turn lead to their next games getting a smaller fanbase and thus less exposure and hype. All in all I would think that more money now means less overall.
I would love to believe that this trend will stop and that CEO's of game companies will see the reason for the drop in revenue but I highly doubt it. For the boys up top money in the pocket will always be better than potential money in the pocket.
When a game eventually suffers backlash it will never be their fault anyway.
There's always someone on the ground floor to point a finger at.
Yeah, it seems that the only types of games that are taking the deal are a) ones where the publisher isn’t confident in the final product, or b) so full of hubris that they believe their Steam customers will buy their game later. And sometimes b is correct. And sometimes a turns out to be great, and those situations benefit no one but Epic. This is all so unnecessary to put the same customers you’re trying to win in this situation where they associate you with forcing you to buy from them where you wouldn’t have had to otherwise. They really miscalculated on how to build branding over time.
Mate, I just commented a similar sentiment. I have patience, so they gambled incorrectly when they thought I would have no choice but to buy it on their store. And, like you, I inevitably forget the game or move on by the time it rolls around to Steam. We have such a large choice of games these days that dropping one like a hot stone has grown a lot easier. I don't need to wait to play your game when I can just play this other game now.
@@AdonanS Most of the hype for games is at launch. If the launch is only on Epic, then they're functionally limiting the potential audience for all the $$$$ they're throwing into marketing it, especially the AAA titles. When it comes out on Steam, not only is the hype train long gone, but its competing with a lot of other newer titles that still have the hype trains going strong and competing with other older titles that are more reasonably priced. Is it any wonder people forget?
@@randomstuff-qu7sh They would have to spend more money on marketing, an expensive solution.
its like epic is reimbursing the dev for the lost sales from consumers who won't buy from that store ( but want a steam version ). Big problem is that also means there is no satisfied customer willing to buy the next game or give word of mouth to others to try.
Also, don't take their free games. Just delete your Epic account and uninstall the launcher. The free games are there to keep user engagement up, to harvest your data and to show off their numbers to their shareholders. Turning the EGS into a desert is the only option.
I refuse to buy any Epic exclusives. Ever. Even if it comes to Steam later.
It's just a matter of principle. I don't want to support anyone involved in anti-consumer exclusivity contracts, on either side.
If Steam ever bribed a developer with an exclusivity contract, I'd boycott that game too.
Same happened with The Outer Worlds. By the time it hit steam I lost interest (the hate the game gets doesn't help either). There's nothing worse for your profit margin than to lose a sale at any cut.
Right?! That might have been a day one purchase for me, I love Obsidian. I know it was their publisher, not them, that went with Epic, but still…that ended any enthusiasm I had for Outer Worlds.
Because the game was mediocre as hell.
Here's my thing, if EPIC wanted to release their FIRST PARTY game as an EPIC store exclusive, IE if EPIC wants to have Fortnite be an EPIC store exclusive, nobody would mind, if EPIC made Fortnite 2, Fortnite harder, and made it EPIC exclusive nobody would care.
Now if STEAM started paying Devs to release STEAM exclusives for a year, guess what, I can guarantee there would be just as much outrage. STEAM's handling of the EPIC exclusives is actually the perfect way they should have handled it, rather than buying up DEV exclusives they worked on their launcher, an overhaul of the friends system, the way they add indie dev games to steam while cutting out the worst of the shovelware, retooled the following and community voices system, and several other small additions.
Meanwhile, EPIC has continued to buy up exclusives, but has barely updated their launcher. To point EPIC, last time I used it, STILL lacked a shopping cart and the ability to buy multiple games in one transaction. On top of that, with no player review system, lack of in store forums, lack of mod accessibility, lack of cloud saves, lack of community systems, and several other smaller nitpick. If EPIC really, and I mean REALLY, wants to capture the PC market, they need to have a launcher on par with, if not exceeding, STEAM's launcher. Then guess what, if they advertise they give Devs a bigger pay percent (IDK if they still do, I recall some stories that they relented and started taking the standard 30% because Fortnite isn't bringing in the money as much anymore) and players would give serious consideration to jumping to EPIC. If EPIC really wanted to steal STEAM's thunder, do the above, but offer to allow the player to copy their STEAM library over to EPIC at no additional cost. Then EPIC would actually be able to contend with STEAM's hold, but EPIC refuses to do anything to improve themselves, or their launcher, and instead continue with the "EPIC exclusives" until Fortnite finally taps out, EPIC loses their firehose of money, and their Launcher is reduced to begging for Fortnite bucks.
Epic added a shopping cart in December 2021, three years late from launch (where Steam, GOG, itchio, Origin, Uplay has).
And yes, if Steam does the same thing Epic do, there will be more outrage + it will actually be monopoly by definition. Right now, Steam isn't a monopoly but a majority market, as they cannot ban devs from selling games elsewhere.
Epic, however, is and continues to try being a monopoly. Their exclusivity deal ban devs from selling their games elsewhere. By definition (Thesaurus or whatever), that is monopoly.
@@Wolfeisberg monopoly =/= exclusive contracts. By that strawman of a definition, there cannot be any first party games, including Fortnite.
Monopoly is being the sole seller of the whole market of a product. EGS is trying to do that to PC games by making third-party their exclusives.
Look up the dictionary before you accuse someone.
@@Wolfeisberg Steam doesn't have third-party exclusivity. What Steam have is devs not wanting to publish on other stores. They can do that anytime.
Epic has third-party exclusivity. Games that signed up on it (most games on EGS) _cannot_ sell their games elsewhere.
You're pulling the most basic logical fallacy here buddy; forcing me to explain everything while you're explaining nothing but playing feelings.
Sorry, but Merriam-Webster has already disagreed on your "monopoly for thee, not for me" from the start. Including the "exclusive ownership", which Epic claims but Valve does not.
@@Wolfeisberg you just used logical fallacy by ignoring the fact that *Steam does not enforce exclusivity, Epic does.*
You clowned your whole light novel there, bucko.
@@Wolfeisberg You're the one who doesn't understand monopolies. Big corporations enter markets and cut product prices so that more people buy their product all the time. They use capital in doing so, it is a kind of investment and a very common tactic. It forces the consumer who doesn't have the luxury of choice to accept their product. By the time they exhaust their investment and need to raise the price again, the market usually has no other competitors left.
This is a very common practice and is used in a lost of competitive industries. Take Uber for example. Every time Uber enters a new country, they provide real cheap service with their investor's money covering their losses. Only need to raise prices when they're done eating up the competition.
Go check Uber and Ola in India if you're still in denial. Both companies are running on losses, backed by investor's money because if either flinches first the other wins the market. Until that happens, it remains an oligopoly.
I'll ask you a simple question. Do you think Epic Games, a company using investor money to buy exclusivity from devs is going to have the same principles as steam if they had that kind of market power and influence? Valve has literally perfected steam to best serve gamers, from steam workshop (something Epic can't compete with for the next 15 years) to social features and regional pricing, and continues to do so.
Steam has a fixed revenue model and takes a higher cut because it provides features other platforms can't begin to provide even if they took a 50% cut, from dedicated servers to steam analytics
Before I knew what a steam was because I was a console player, I just bought this funny Satisfactory on Epic. But I will probably rebuy it on steam at 1.0 for the reasons like "all my games are on steam", "All my friends use steam" and "Steam is my best profile"
Steam's 30% cut is an "access to the users" fee, as a developer do you want 88% of 100 purchases or 70% of 10,000 purchases
What most of the video that has been said is something I've been saying for less than two years. If you want your post-EGS exclusive game to be successful on Steam (and of course: GOG), you basically have to do one of the following:
1. Provide a major Content Update or Expansion
2. Release it alongside a new Console release.
3. Re-release as a "Game of the Year Edition".
3. Do a marketing push.
4. Heavy Discount
If you're a Triple-A Publisher/Developer, you'd do fine as long as you don't screw up the release like IOI Interactive did...but I'm more worried on the Indies' side.
All and All, it's all about the execution.
Provide a roadmap for the release on steam (/gog), and make it clear that you use the year like a beta test, with bug fixes and so on
@@schwingedeshaehers That's what Phantom Brigade did, and they still ate flack for it. But they did indeed use the time well, and released with a (mostly) finished game on Steam. But for a lot of folks including myself, I still dislike their decision.
Ok, props where it's given. Supergiant actually used the exclusivity for a good thing. Taking the exclusivity money, and actually using it to FINISH their game. I'd really would rather wait for a game to actually be finished, rather then pay to play an unfinished one now.
Great video
Really like the examples to drive the point foward
Glad to spend my time on this
Thank you for saying so, glad you enjoyed it!
I know I am late to the party but here goes my story with Shenmue 3. I was but 9 years when I first got shenmue 1 on the dreamcast back in 1999 and then shenmue 2 in 2001 and the awe I felt as a kid was indescribable with the franchise to the point I backed up the development of Shenmue 3 without second thoughts (It was a hefty sum), the day I found out they were doing the epic exclusive was probably the first time I have legitimately been upset to the point of me actually talking to a lawyer to seek legal action, I know there was word going around about it until they opted to give refunds after the threat of a class action lawsuit became apparent and the consequences of bad publicity became too much to be ignored, got my refund after 2 years later and never looked back, that being said, what the snake oil salesman of yu suzuki did with the trust the crowdfunders did has made me NEVER wanting to back up any crowdfunded game ever again, doesn't matter how good it looks, I am glad his reputation got dragged through the mud.
I will always forgive indie and AA games for taking Epic’s money for a time limited exclusive deal. Those studios can use that money to make better games. I only ask they wishlist it on Steam so I won’t forget about them. I game on Linux, so Steam’s efforts to support all Linux gamers, not just their hardware, makes me far more likely to get a game on steam.
I feel their correct solution is to just sell the games cheaper on EGS so that it ends up with the dev getting the same amount of money regardless of which store the game was purchased from. If the dev wants $45 per sale, then with EGS's 12% cut the game should cost $51.14, and with Steam's 30% cut it should cost $64.29, then we have a a fair choice. Are the features that Steam provide worth the extra $13.15 to me? If Steam refuses to have the game sell on their platform for more, then the fault will lie with Steam and not Epic.
I believe a lot of e-commerce platforms won’t let you sell your product for less elsewhere outside of one-off sales. Not sure if Steam does this specifically, but it might be one reason why this scenario wouldn’t happen.
I think steam says if you sell the steam key elsewhere then steam must be the cheapest.
It only effects the steam key
I have a rule I follow for Epic Exclusives when they come to Steam, I won't buy them unless they are discounted by more than 70%. Which is why I've never purchase Outer Wilds (regardless of how good I think it looks), because they've never ever discounted it by more than 40%. Some Devs don't seem to understand that the real world value of their game is heavily tied to it's relevancy, and relevancy behaves very much like entropy.
Although I must thank Epic, they've saved me from buying a lot of truly bad dunmpster fires of games by making me to wait a year! Thank you Epic for helping me curate my Steam games portfolio.
That seems pretty arbitrary, why does a game being a year old mean that it's lost over 2/3 of it's value? there's plenty of games that are WAY older than a year that are still just as relevant as when they came out.
Lets not forget the fact that Epic promised lower game prices because developers get a bigger cut and FF7R costs 80 friggin euros here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As if the exclusivity bribe and higher share wasnt enough for Squeenix for a game they already tripple diped.
Oh, I remember them claiming they would pass the savings on to the customer. That didn't last long.
I like epic games so much that I pick almost every free game from them and when I want to play I buy it on steam.
Oh that's funny I buy Epic exclusives especially to undo your work. Good luck trying to stop Epic exclusives, I'll forever help their exclusive practice, so that steam fanboys mald forever.
Jesus Christ, that is the saddest thing I have ever read.
@@hidaaan You are doing Gods work.
@@hidaaan Jesus Christ, that is the saddest thing I have ever read.
@Something Diabolical Don't care never did. Gonna keep buying exclusives, hope you and your friends keep malding.
Only thing I ever did with my epic account was play about 4 rounds of forknife. And once they took Outer Worlds (the obsidian game, not majora's mask in space) captive, I vehemently deleted my account and let them know in the "why are you deleting your account?" type box.
Excellent work!
Steam overlay is the gamechanger for me. Having a suite of options for custom controllers and layouts is so good. Its surprising its free.
For me (as an indie developer with through the roof ambitions for my games but a absolutely non existent budget if epic offered me money to simply put my game on there platform for a year before I release it on steam I would do it in a heartbeat because for me every cent I can get is important and it might make the difference between me having to spend 5 years working on it alone to release it and me being able to hire others to get the massive goal done in 2 years and then with that done the better revenue split also means that for every sale I do receive I get more I can spend on making the sequel and finishing that
(My goal is an immersive Sim like game where the map is the entirety of new York City
The deal is for guaranteed sales, which means you won't see a cent from sales until you've surpassed the amount of sales you were guaranteed. If you get a 100k (apparently common for indies on epic, but can be as low as 44k) deal for a 20 bucks game, you got around 5000 guaranteed sales. Every sale of your game from copy n°1 to n°5000 will go 100% into epic and only on copy n°5001 you will see your first $17.6 from sales.
This is what kills a lot of early access games on epic, they get that first injection of cash and blow it early, forgetting that it has to last them an entire year, and the lack of feedback (the point of early access) due to low playerbase doesnt help, so the game is basically stagnant for a year
Then when you release on steam, everyone who was interested on your game already perceives it as being a year old so they expect some sort of discount, or they might not jump in.
@@twerkingbollocks6661 You bring up a very interesting point of concern.
In my own case, I am still well off from needing to address housing my game on either Steam or Epic to begin with. But logistically, how do all of these things play out?
As an indie dev, I have always been concerned about how impacting Steams heavy cut is (especially without marketing support from them) compared to what other hosting sites do with 12% and what not. The exclusivity thing strikes me as a wierd game of manipulation between two companies using the indie developer as a toy. So if someone took an exclusivity deal from Epic, for example, you are stating that they are granted "however much" in immediate funding - but earn nothing further until they meet a certain number of sales.
I assume the game itself has to be openly available for that whole year in order to fulfill the exclusivity contract as well?
So not even early access at this point so much as a paid closed beta practically?
Just curious as to how it all plays out - and while I've never understood the whole Steam vs Epic issues people seem to have - I think it would be hard to deny that it is a horrible idea to jeopardize your future prospects for a much smaller short term gain.
@@AzureScywhy not release it at both? (Maybe with the difference in price added to steam, with explanation why) (and maybe also gog, I don't know the rules there)
@@schwingedeshaehers when you take an EGS exclusive deal, you are locked up there for a year and simply cannot release on Steam or any other retailer.
Steams cut might be a bit heavy, but still better considering the more than 30% larger user base, all of the community tools, the multiplayer libraries you can very easily integrate for most game engines and languages, a workshop for modders if you want to become a fan favourite and more.
Steam is a no brainer for me
@@mr_confuse I think you don't need exclusivity to publish there, only if you want more money (upfront)
The Epic store is what finally drove me to Pirate Bay. I had money, and I was more than willing to pay for the game I wanted, but due to Epic's incessant greed I made the conscious choice to not follow the law.
How many others are like me?
How many other perfectly reasonable customers have resorted to piracy due to Epic?
If a game is on Steam, I at least wait for a sale since I am aware of Valve's crimes and I don't want them to make too much money, but the service they provide is just too good to not use.
This isn't about what company I like more. It's about who has the better service, and Epic is just using a shortcut to hide how awful their service is.
In the past, certain game franchises only existed on certain consoles due to legitimate hardware and software limitations which still kinda exist today.
But on PC?
Basically everyone has Windows, sometimes Linux. Hardware only matters if you're a greasy Triple A developer that can't optimize to save a life, or if you have a literal potato from 2007.
Epic does not have a functional business model beyond holding big name games hostage. They do not have good customer support, their service is garbage, and they unironically let Tencent tell them what to do.
If the only reason you make money is because the people who do business with you are too stupid to choose the better option, then you don't have a business. You're just a thief.
Pirating is justified in this case. Fuck exclusivity tbh. If developers want to limit the way we play, they better be ready to face our countermeasures. Just please don't pirate indie games!
Pirating is something I view similar to volunteering for a charity. Doing your tiny part to make the world a better place. Copyright laws are a disgrace, making leeches rich and destroying culture, but the leeches have all the power in our society.
It's the same idea as Epic Store, but more generally, make things worse for everyone, to allow someone sell you solution.
Anyway, thank you for your service. The world would be a worse place without people like you.
@@gJonii Based.
@@MattHatter360 this may be the reason why I potentially acquired the new Zelda game for PC. Thanks Nintendo!
Heads up, potato from '07 needs to have the year updated. My ThinkPad is from 2015, and I barely get past 30 frames on max settings for Source 1 games, I get 2 frames for stuff like Control (which in retrospect, I am surprised my ThinkPad didn't go boom...)
I bought like 4 games on the epic game store, and spent $0. I have never seen Valve giveaway non -free-to-play games for free.
I literally signed up for Steam because they were giving away Portal - so it has happened.
How about to buy games on GOG instead?
No DRM locked software doesn't suffer from seller "version" issues.
DRM is a must for new games. You might support piracy but if you're the CEO of a gaming company, you need to pay your employees.
@@FutaCatto2 GOG is not piracy.
Its a store that dont lock games under its laucher.
And i only support piracy when the game is inacessible, like studios that dont exist anymore, or rare cartridges that arent made anymore.
Just like books, if one was written 100 years ago and no one has its rights, i dont think its wrong to make it acessible.
And only a toxic CEO would made DRM a must, just to make people buy the same game over and over on diferent stores.
@@guilhermecaiado5384 The creators of Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom is a very well known company to release high quality games even with DRM.
@@FutaCatto2 You must have really enjoyed the 40FPS in Resident Evil Village with Denuvo whenever a lot of bugs appeared on screen
@nightmarepotato5000 I did not play Village. But I played RE4 Remake with a 4090 and had over 100 fps at 4k max settings.
Personally, I never buy a game on steam if it was an epic exclusive. And I think I am not alone. Platform exclusive on PC is a disgrace to gaming. And I hate it so much I wouldn't give a penny to those companies. Because there is no justification to this other than greed and selfishness.
You're not alone. And it's justifiable too, since over 70% of those (even listed in this video) are total failures in gameplay performance; _existing primarily to extract Epic exclusivity money._
Shenmue 3, Strangers of Paradise, FF7 Remake PC port, etc.
I think I could forgive an solo/indie dev that really needed the money to finish the game, but other than that...
@@JeffHanke I forgave a single dev, Supergiant, because I am an unapologetic fanboy and have been since Bastion came out on Indie Arcade on the 360.
Well in that case should you also boycott steam as they offer of a build in DRM is the reason many publisher put things on Steam only and not on GOG.
But I guess that works against the narrative that the current near monopolistic monarch of PC gaming is also just a soulless corporation that wants your money I guess.
@@rynobehnke8289 The difference is that Valve's CEG DRM isn't being leveraged by Valve to gain exclusivity. Any developer is free to use the DRM for a Steam version and still sell the same game sans DRM or using a different DRM anywhere else they like. If a developer decides to make a geam Steam exclusive, the choice was 100% made by the developer, Valve had no input.
Well said, very well spoken, and very well edited. The line 'feels like buying your game second hand' is all too relatable.
Thank you - so glad you enjoyed it!
man all the data mining combined with the buying off of excolusivity really bothered me, I haven't touched epic games stores ever and to my knowledge developers are only hurting themselves by locking away a big portion of the PC playerbase.
Yep. A bunch of the original publishers that took the deal declined on their next game. Guess the deal wasn’t worth it in the long run.
I'm mostly a patient gamer, so 1 year wait for a new game really isn't an issue. I just hate fully exclusive titles, thankfully these generally just tend to be console vs PC and that's fine as porting is extra time/effort.
Kingdom Hearts is still stuck in EGS prison, goddammit Mr Square Enix :(
Squeenix is currently stuck in shitty ports & remakes. Tbh, it's kinda a blessing in disguise they're trying to go the Ubisoft way.
@@TheRibbonRed yeah can't believe they managed to botched 2 big releases in a row, yikes.
Epic is basically free paid bug testing for steam only users
Right? They had Red Dead 2 exclusive for a month, and it was a broken mess that whole month. Did me a favor by stopping me from buying it.
When we bought into the idea of downloading our games rather than owning a hard copy is when it all went bad.
"You Should Pirate Anime" 1 and 2 by Uniquenameosaurus cover the exclusives topic in relation to the anime industry where exclusives are killing innovation on streaming platforms and preventing people from legally watching some anime series due to licensing complications.
Spot on with everything. My epic account lies dormant. I hope I never have to install their shopfront.
The point of launching stuff on epic first is to make some money from Epic and then fix all the bugs in the game with a smaller playerbase so that people dont get turned away, and then publish a polished game on Steam...
Also missed in the video that 30% cut is reinvested in the customer. Free cloud backups and downloading of games forever. The creation of vr gaming. The creation of handheld pc gaming. The creation if linux gaming. The creation of a online games storefront. The creation of updating games online. The saving of gaming on pc altogether. They have no exclusives at all. Constant sales. There has never been a company so focused on the customer in history and they havent changed. Why should we ever give money to someone who is against these policies?????
And another reason not to buy games on Steam after having been Epic exclusive is they now often come with the caveat of forcing you to use Epic anyways through their online services.
And another piece of this that show their hypocrisy is they constantly seem to be out to take petty shots at steam, this without considering that they are hitting other stores as well such as GOG.
Of course, another big reason players hate Epic so much is the giant messiah complex of their CEO.
Also, it has been revealed that the whole situation around Ooblets was caused by Epic. The developers of that game lacked a community manager so they asked Epic for help. They pushed them towards being antagonistic, all to try and make the Steam base seem bad when the inevitable backlash struck.
I haven't seen any Steam games that used to be Epic exclusive that required you to use Epic's system. Gave the option for it, yeah, but they didn't require it.
7:41 now i have a reason to remove it from my wishlist