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.
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.
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.
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
@@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.
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.
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.
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).
@@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.
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.
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
@twerking bollocks 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
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.
And yet, epic store still makes no money and Kingdom Hearts on steam sold gang busters. It's hilarious how badly Tim understands the pc market. They will never get an audience like this.
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.
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.
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.
FFVII remake not only took forever to come to Steam, it came full price + and lets not forget that it is the first part of a game that should only have one. FFVII is my favorite game, like you I have a copy for my psone, and I’ve waited my whole life for the disgrace that was this remake. I got the game in my ps4, but wasn’t able to keep playing and was eager to give another chance to it, but now after a couple of steam “sales” where the game just dropped to the full price, I not only hate the game, but also all the squarenix business practices and now I will ignore it in both plataforms and be happy, eventually coming back to the OG FFVII a better and complete game anyway…
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.
Dude, is simple: - I use Epic ONLY to get the weekly free games. Only take the game and leave and play it occasionally if you wish to. - I use steam for everything else. During the year waiting for a game I want I just live life and/or play my back catalog, and when available on steam I buy it and end of the story.
Fun fact : Epic games is loosing a significant amount of money each year buying exclusives. They PLAN on making profits in the future, but they're not planning to do any upgrades to make our experience better. They are DOOMED to fail, if they keep going like this.
what annoyed me most about EGS was that in all that time of throwing money at free games or exclusives, they were incredibly lax on developing the store e.g. It took forever for them to add a shopping cart. I have games across multiple platforms and even a few from dev websites, so it's not just steam that I use. I have however refused to spend money on the EGS. Metro really annoyed me. Satisfactory was worse for me though, I was hyped for that game and was in in the discord which is rare for me. They were on steam and then they hired a community manager (nice guy tbh) and one of the first things he had to do was make a video about the move to EGS.
I did appreciate how straightforward Coffee Stain’s community manager was. I didn’t have time to include it, but he spoke about the feedback pretty honestly later in the video I clipped from. Seems like he was pretty genuine.
What killed EPIC games for me was their acquisition of Rocket league, I hoped that it would be for the benefit of the game but no. Rocket league has seen ZERO content updates besides micro transaction skins for 2-3 years then in December of 2023 they got rid of the trading feature in Rocket league, which was a HUGE part of what made the game, for the sole purpose of providing cars for Rocket League Racing in fortnight… 3 YEARS OF NEGLECT for a game mode Rocket League players would not have anything to do with. The servers are at an all time low point, ghost touches are common place, ping issues and packet loss occur nearly every game, horrible net code, lack of investment in better servers, and just recently the firing of ALL ESPORTS STAFF… But hey at least that degenerate game fortnight has Rocket league racing right? Fuck epic games, me and all my homies hate epic games. I’ll never give them another dime.
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.
When epic came on the scene I didn't care and was a bit happy, same when GOG came, tthought it might be good for competition but knew it was slim chance against steam. After pouching games, games that I was interested in and games I didn't care about, I vowed to never install it, install games that they own or pay full price for games that took the offer. Many people were stabbed in the back by games that took that offer and I didn't want to act as if it wasn't my problem cause one day it might affect me. Satisfactory was up my alley of types of games I love, Would have gladly payed full price for the game but since the devs got all the money they need from epic, the most they are getting out of me is 4.99, nothing more since there actions have shown me that they don't care about me or my money, there not even wishlisted now that they are on steam. Hitman 3 is the exact same way, loved the first two, not buying it unless its 4.99 for the FULL game. I'm fine waiting, waited years to play games that I love now since I didn't have a good pc. At the end of the day GOG is installed on my pc and epic isn't, even tho epic gave games away for free that I truly wanted. Was even planning on buying cyberpunk 2077 on GOG so that they get 100% of the profits before the shitshow that happen when it was released a bugging incomplete mess.
Definitely one of the people that haven't even considered buying anything from epic since they started this shit. Was looking forward to Spellbreak when the devs showed off alpha footage on imgur years and years ago. But they made two mistakes. They sold the game as an epic exclusive, and went all in on the battle royale phase. I didn't even know it came to steam until like half a year before the devs announced they were shutting down the servers. Damn shame. At least they had the grace to release the game to the community so they could open community servers. But as far as not giving epic money, most people just don't seem to have the spine or the care. Same old weak bullshit of, "I"m just one person, me not giving epic money won't make a difference." and that thought process echos in the hundreds of thousands.
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.
Promising a steam release but going back on it should honestly make them be forced to refund every single person who asks for it. That's just disgusting.
I don’t know how they could get away without doing refunds. They promised their backers something that was 100% in their control to give, and then swapped it for something worse after the game was nearly finished. They deserved all the bad press they got.
I will NEVER forgive the Epic Fail Store for what they did to Kingdom Hearts. I played the original Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 on the playstation 2 when they came out, but could never afford a PS3 or PS4, and eventually became a PC gamer and ditched consoles forever. I waited decades and decades for them to release these games on PC, and when they finally do, Tim Sweeny had to get his filthy hooves on the entire trilogy, not as a year exclusive, which is bad enough ,but as a permanent exclusive. Bold of him to assume I'd choose his shitty platform over pirating the game.
I had fallen for the exclusivity nonsense before I knew what it really was and bought both Hitman III and Satisfactory on the Epic Games Store. since then, I haven't ever purchased anything on their platform and just take the free games with a smile on my face. I imagine there are MANY other people in my exact situation
I’ve never bought a game from the Epic Games Store. Everything I have through Epic has been given away as a free game from them. I have a decent size library just from redeeming games for a couple years and I didn’t even have a computer that could play most of them. 😆 But to be quite frank, I don’t care whether a game comes from Epic or Steam as long as it’s not affecting a game’s price. It’s not like choosing between PlayStation or Xbox and needing both consoles if you want to play both platforms’ exclusives. No matter if I get a game through Steam or Epic Games Store, they effectively act as launchers and I’m still playing the game on one platform.
The only reason Hades ended up being well received is because of Supergiant's incredible track record of making high quality games. If the game was just merely 'ok' then it'd have been torn to shreds like the rest.
honestly i really started hating epic back when they were giving out free games, i knew from the start even though it looked like and you could say it really is some generous giveaway so people can get games at literally no consequence, its also just a marketing strategy, they advertize free games with no consequence so people get their service so they get to boast more user stats or maybe they even get paid for having so many users, before that they were just the fortnite bad company trying to get popular that nobody cared about, but when they started giving free games it started to get a bit more iffy imo
Must admit that I do have one game on epic, got a code with a piece of HW. The only game which I really wanted that released on Epic was Outer Worlds, but I waited until it was on GOG to grab it when it was on sale.
I've recently had to download EGS as part of some new projects in UE5, I had a quick dip in to the store to see if I could pick up Unreal 1 (the game), and honestly it's kind of depressing how bad it is. Performance is terrible, the search function barely seems to work, and it turns out they don't even sell Unreal 1, or any of the Unreal games. What a complete Failure of a store.
im a little late to seeing this video but when i saw someone talking about epic exclusives coming to steam, i wondered what games you were going to talk about and i never thought that someone would bring up the earlier release of satisfactory on epic. i wished that i waited the 1 year and 2 or 3 months to get it on steam instead of epic.
I feel I may be alone in this, but I really only use steam for the games themselves, and its not like I've been a buyer of games for years and years to have a library of over a couple hundred, so to me, I just see epic as another place to get games, exclusive or not. So I really don't see the reason to be upset. It's even weirder if the person complaining about it being exclusive already has an account with epic, and has bought or played games there before. I might understand not wanting to buy it twice, especially if you have friends who don't have epic, and there isn't cross platform content, but it's been more likely that games do in fact have cross platform, even if through a third party like borderlands and the gearbox friend system, meaning you wouldn't need to buy it again. Another thing I could understand would be, if you get something extra for playing all of a previous series on steam, and you buy the new one, you get something extra for also playing the new on steam, but suddenly its on epic. I think Assassins Creed Unity did something like that on Xbox, you got like outfits and something, but at that point, it was the Uplay store that was giving those outfits anyways, because its an Ubisoft game. If the main argument is just, "epic games bad" because they just want to be a game delivery system, then sure go right ahead. I don't think they need to be 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 then steam just to exist and to have people buy from both. I also don't think its totally fair to say "have a game release on both and let the people decide where they buy it", and then say its not super in steam favor. I barely know GoG exists because I have a game on there, that I didn't even pay for, because prime gaming gave it to me. steam barely has any competition, because if a new store comes out, it has to have some sort of advantage that steam doesn't just to have you split your library up, and I think that's just super underhanded. If the whole argument is just, you're angry that they're buying the game up, then selling it on steam at a later date, it just sounds silly to me. Like I said at the start of this comment, I see both services as just a market place to get games, I'm not dick riding one over the other because the experience its just SOOOO much better on one this on than that one. Most games are For Profit anyways, so having a company let their game be bought up for a kick of cash makes sense. Most of the games you pointed out I didn't even know were epic bought exclusives, the only one that I did know was BL3. But if you like a series and you want the new installment, why make a fuss about it?
I feel like you really just heard what you wanted here, but Epic’s unethical attempts to buy a seat at the table they didn’t earn and dictate customer behavior should absolutely be protested. I’m glad their reputation has suffered and hope it continues to.
It’s true, IF the developer cares enough to finish their game. Many of the exclusives I’ve seen were dumped on Epic because they were done working on them and wanted to recoup something, but after the bad reviews hit and the sales never happened, those games are usually abandoned by their devs.
Not sure if this has changed, but they didn’t have controller support at all for a long time. One game actually recommended players add their Epic game manually on Steam if they wanted to use a controller.
A good friend was livestreaming Satisfactory, so I downloaded the Epic games storefront. I go to make an account .. and my e-mail is already used. I had NEVER touched the program ever. I didn't even know Epic had their own store until I tried to play Satisfactory. After sending myself a password reset and turning on 2 factor auth, then going in and resetting the account fully, I found someone from Venezuela had used my e-mail. After that, I hard locked the account and never touched Satisfactory again. When I found out Steam was getting all the games, I glued myself to Steam and will never touch another side store. Ugh.
My issue with Epic was the fact they axed Fortnite, a game I bought in day one, and turned it into just another pubg but with minor base-building attributes. I PAID for the story mode. I didn't pay for pub-bloody-g. Never again.
I actually like the sound of exclusive early access, less chance of random people buying into early access and then moaning about it being incomplete, like.. duhh.
I am neither an Epic, nor a Steam fan (Humble, GOG, etc. for that matter). If i find a game on Epic (or any other platform) for 10$ while that same game is on Steam for 15$ i will buy from Epic (or others). I just go for best price as an East European resident. I do however condone platform exclusivity.
I was going to get Unreal Engine to dig through the files of Voices of the Void a couple weeks ago, and I was immediately put off from doing it as soon as I saw I needed to install the Epic launcher to even begin to use the engine. I’m not installing an entire launcher just to do ONE thing when I can look online elsewhere for a file dump instead.
I always wait for the steam version, most of my epic games are basically 'free' games. When Satisfactory left steam and went to epic i basically said never will i buy an epic game after.
Well you know what... I bought the game again... from Steam after Epic Games version corrupt my game update, it happen all the times with Sonic Colors Ultimate (I bought from Epic because it's exclusive at that time, and I bought again on Steam after corrupt incident) The most baffles was, Epic Games have an achievement but some games in Epic Games version didn't have achievement progress, but on Steam they have achievement.
I know this is a year old, but at the time FF7R released I felt no guilt (even felt proud actually) of resorting to piracy since i couldnt wait for them to release it on steam (also when it did it was really expensive, i think above $70)
Games releasing exclusively on Epic never bothered me. Console manufacturers have been doing it for decades. What's the problem here exactly? Is it: "OH NO! I have to run one additional launcher in the background! My mind can't handle anything more than Steam!" I've used multiple launchers for the past 10 years and never thrown such a hissy fit as some people in this regard.
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
@@alexlehrersh9951 hey dev here. Epic may only take 12 percent but steam gives the better deal. Local play let's me encourage couch co op style community with the push of a button. Proton means I don't have to make an entire new distro for Linux I just have to make sure it's proton comparable which is far easier especially for someone doing tiny ass games between shifts at work in their garage. Getting on steam is also some of the best bang for your buck marketing. 100 bucks to have your game show up in front of that many eyes is better than any amount of advertising and they even refund you after you make a certain amount on your game. Epic takes less but they also give you as a dev far less. And honestly I'm willing to pay more to steam to have access to the things they provide. The area this get murky in is the exclusivity deals. As those are cash in hand up front at an assumed number of sales. I do pretty alright as a hobbiest at a few thousand sales a year meaning this brings in 2 to 3 k a year for me. But if epic offered me a deal of an assumed 100k sales up front I'd take it cause my piddly little games will never make that threshold anyway and that's 400k in pocket. But my game would suffer for it. Cause I do use those steam features.
Do you forget that you're paying steam to handle distribution and hosting costs in addition to everything else, plus you're buying ease of use on a well refined proven platform. On epic you're paying for the most rudimentary platform imaginable absolutely no bonus features or assets brought to the table other than the absolute minimum required distribution and hosting . Plus with steam you can sell steam keys directly yourself and then you don't even have to give them the 30% cut. @@alexlehrersh9951
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.
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.
@@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.
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
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
@@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
Okay. But what I don't understand is that you're rebuying the games, yet you use open source software intended for theft and emulation. Why buy anything at all?
@@playkellyplay When was opensource ever intended for theft? plus emulation is legal in the circumstance that the bios and data from the device is supplied by you
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.
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??
@@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
"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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
also steams API being open through things like steamcharts and stuff lets me know if a game is dead if I should buy it epic nah buy a dead game and your out of money or fighting epic support
@@genichiroashina6372 That system is trash. If I bought a game and didn't like it, I got the right to review it without grinding hours till EGS decides I have the right to review a game. If someone didn't like the game, they are not going to stay there for hours just to post a negative review. They say it's to prevent review bombing (wich, let's be honest, isn't a real problem for 99% of the games), but it is to prevent bad reviews. Btw, the review system is also overly simplistic, nothing to read so you can't know why the people gave that rating, just stars and a few brief, generic caracteristics of the game.
Epic store is angry that steam is basically a monopoly, while employing tactics in hope of becoming a monopoly themsevles one day.. steam recovered my account in an hour, gave my money back when i bought that one scam dayz clone (even after 10h mind you) and so on. They take bigger cut because they provide a valuable service that players appreciate, and stick around. So yeah you might get less %, but more copies, thus more cash. Its simple economics. I feel like steam is a monopoly because everyone else is either nieche (like, gog is perfect, but its for old games mostly)or straight up incompetent to compete
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.
@@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.
"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.
@@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
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.
@@nightmarepotato5000And competing against a monopoly wouldn't work without a compelling product. Example: Airbus' difficulty to compete with Boeing in their early days until A320's maiden flight.
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.
@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".
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!
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.
@@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)
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
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
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!
@@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.
@@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%.
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 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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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
@@lukeypookiepoo 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 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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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 .
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
@twerking bollocks 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.
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?
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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
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
