Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements)
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: But Tim, two years ago you were ranting about Microsoft Store being tested on customers and stiffling innovation with exclusives.
: That's right, they made a store obviously looking to snort raw cash based on the popularity of their one big Windows business.
Just like 15 years ago Gaben duped people into using Steam banking on the success of Counter Strike.
And what a dick move using one product to push a platform like that!
: Then we invented Plunknite...
: Exactly! Oh wait...
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I'm more worried about this nonsense.
You can only preorder Rage 2 for Bethesda's launcher right now, not Steam
Retailers only let you pre-order it for Bethesda.net.
They do realise that everyone and their dog starting a vod service is pushing us back to the pirate bay. The same bullshit is going to happen here.
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@DogsB Because one big monopoly is very very bad (30% of all revenue for Valve or no costumers for you).
Of course, in every other industry this would lead to more stores and fierce competition that would force them to keep their revenue cuts to a bare minimum (ever noticed how there's more than one supermarket chain in the world?). But as I've observed many times, economic principles don't seem to apply to software
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I was enjoying the rants on Reddit last night. They went off on exclusives (how Steam started), the Epic store's lack of communication tools (you're on Reddit!), and not wanting to have to start your games from multiple locations (I hear this Start Menu thing comes with Windows).
This was all while I was going through the last of the software from my previous Windows install and choosing what to reinstall. I ended up with 7 store applications (down from 9), a bunch of single-game launcher+updater+game add-on stores, and the occasional icon that actually starts a game.
I expect I'll use the Epic Store about as much as I use Origin, uPlay, or the Microsoft Store: get free games, maybe buy a first-party game if it's a really good deal, and ignore it otherwise.
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@DogsB
Just when I thought Bethesda couldn't have it more bass-ackwards, they've done and loaded the foot into the gun, starting with the knee and proceeding from there.
Have they shown the shoehorned single-multiplayer yet where NPCs will be replaced by "experiences with your friends"? Because that seems to be all the RAGE now! *groan*@anonymous234 said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Because one big monopoly is very very bad
There's just one tiny thing. They're 15 years late, and have nothing to offer except "fuck you give us money". If they had feature parity with Gaben or, alternatively, like GOG, offered DRM-free (hahaha...snort... ahaha) installers that, hardware and OS concerns aside, will work 10, 20, hell, make it 50 years from now, then we could talk about me giving money to them and not the other way round.
They have a case study of millions of users, and a working example (several, in fact) of what works and what does not. Why haven't they done it?
Hey, give us a chance, we're just starting out! Ok, I'm giving you the chance of 0€ while you pay a team of Indians to make it. Call me in two years. In the meantime...
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@DogsB said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
They do realise that everyone and their dog starting a vod service is pushing us back to the pirate bay.
With all these video subscription streaming services, if you want access to videos on multiple services then you need to pay multiple subscriptions. This isn't the same with multiple game launchers. You're buying the game anyway, which launcher you download it from is irrelevant.
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
and not wanting to have to start your games from multiple locations (I hear this Start Menu thing comes with Windows)
Also Steam lets you launch non-Steam games.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
They're 15 years late, and have nothing to offer except "fuck you give us money".
As opposed to "fuck you, give us and Valve money"?
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@loopback0 said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
and not wanting to have to start your games from multiple locations (I hear this Start Menu thing comes with Windows)
Also Steam lets you launch non-Steam games.
That doesn't help the "Steem is evulz cause it allowz DRM!!!1!" crowd. Rants!
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@loopback0
This isn't entirely about Steam (there is GOG, which I consider an equal for different reasons), nor there is single "us" there - there is Bethesda Softworks, the publisher and numerous developers, one of which is Bethesda Game Studios, all under ZeniMax Media (did I hear "Hollywood accounting"?), nor are they passing the savings from the 30% previously eaten by the poor ol' Gaben to the customers. Other than that your argument is sound, of course.
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@loopback0 said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@DogsB said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
They do realise that everyone and their dog starting a vod service is pushing us back to the pirate bay.
With all these video subscription streaming services, if you want access to videos on multiple services then you need to pay multiple subscriptions. This isn't the same with multiple game launchers. You're buying the game anyway, which launcher you download it from is irrelevant.
It's a pain the bollox though when you need seven launchers with seven different passwords and then remember which one is where. Or my personal pet peeve of needing to login into uplay/rockstar bollox after launching from steam. They're not really competing with each other. They're competing with my laziness. At some point I will get tired of it and not bother any more which is why I suspect I haven't played a battlefield since 3. I can't be arsed downloading and installing origin.EA can happily have my money if I don't have to jump through that hoop.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
This isn't entirely about Steam
Ok, but my point was all this does is changes which company gets some of the money. What does it matter?
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
nor are they passing the savings from the 30% previously eaten by the poor ol' Gaben to the customers
Duh.
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@loopback0
Gaben gives me non-invasive DRM (offline play), cloud saves, overlay, community forums and galleries, profiles, achievements and collectibles and, while they sure took their time, a sane refund policy.
GOG gives me DRM-free stuff and a bunch of classics.You don't open a new burger chain by parking a van on the street corner and shouting from the rooftop you're paying the farmers more than the bogus Colonel, except that you'll have to cook all the stuff yourself and the street is far on the outskirts.
Sadly, this seems to be common in the computing industry especially.
: Hey, we made this new thing here. It doesn't have any features yet, but we assure you IT'S BETTER!
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Gaben gives me non-invasive DRM (offline play), cloud saves, overlay, community forums and galleries, profiles, achievements and collectibles and, while they sure took their time, a sane refund policy.
GOG gives me DRM-free stuff and a bunch of classics.Fair enough.
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@DogsB said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I'm more worried about this nonsense.
You can only preorder Rage 2 for Bethesda's launcher right now, not Steam
Retailers only let you pre-order it for Bethesda.net.
They do realise that everyone and their dog starting a vod service is pushing us back to the pirate bay. The same bullshit is going to happen here.
Pretty much this. There is no way I am buying something on Bethesda's launcher.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
non-invasive DRM (offline play)
When it works.
cloud saves
When games support them, and when they work.
overlay
This has become less necessary as newer games have improved and handle Alt+Tab and/or Borderless Fullscreen better.
collectibles
I don't find Valve's decision to gamify their profile system and what came along with it as a "good" thing.
I don't see Epic (or any competition) as a bad thing, per se. I still personally would prefer sticking with Steam and GOG as I wouldn't want to have 3, 4, 5, etc. clients all open at the same time to keep games up to date and to choose between things to play, unless the other clients are for only a choice few titles (like Battle.net being Blizzard games). All the things you listed are things the other competitors can add if they see value in them and if they don't already have them (hell, of your list, GOG is only missing galleries and collectibles, though their current refund policy may not be to your liking). If Valve wants to stay the king, they just need to keep what they have working and stay competitive. The former, well, the Steam client has many bugs that they don't seem to care about, and the latter, I'd say Epic is trying something to get them to do so.
And, of course, as I write this, Steam has completely blown away my game category definitions, since I installed Steam to my new tablet and it didn't bother syncing any of the cloud stuff to it, including those categories, but apparently did from it at some point.
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@ChaosTheEternal said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
When it works.
That's for developers and publishers to support, isn't it?
When games support them, and when they work.
Again, for developers to implement. It's included in the 30%, so even Ubisoft is supporting it for some games.
In fact, because the numskulls have been putting settings and saves in no less than 5 different places, not counting those that just take a big shit in the Documents folder, it's just pure laziness.I don't find Valve's decision to gamify their profile system and what came along with it as a "good" thing.
Fair enough. That's an individual preference. I find decorations for fun and profit of cents at the time alright, but the bullshit market of CSGO is pure corpo-rat greed.
Two things I forgot in my rage induced frenzy:
- Workshop. Changing local files is not allowed, which therefore doesn't work for all engines, and developers must work a bit. Nevertheless, it's there for those who want it.
- Alternative versions: older versions and the other way round - betas. Again, developers must move in their chairs slightly, but everything else is done for them.
I don't see Epic (or any competition) as a bad thing, per se.
That's if there is any. This isn't it. Both Epic and Bethesda at the moment are banking on exclusives to reign in people, because they know they have fuck all else. Some indies went to Epic, because Gaben ate their lunch money or something. He probably did, but he did earn at least a half of it. And if their game didn't make money and they blame Steam charts and discovery algorithms for that - that's like blaming Google that nobody reads your cooking blag - , I've no sympathy whatsoever. Especially for those Goat Simulator guys. Fuck those clowns. They made a funny toy, which was plastered everywhere like there had been a gonzo gangbang parade of goats. Then they found out that the games industry didn't quite make them rockstars from a single hit just because all those sick GIFs were top picks on Imgur for weeks on end.
Bethesda Launcher? It's got less than that. Less than nothing. It's got negative value at the moment.
Now, I might have come across here as something of a Steam apologist (which very well I might be - the fanboi shit is real). Steam does need a kick in the guts. It's got a lot annoying things. The client is a glorified Chromium, but slower and less reliable. Videos used to hang the whole thing for me randomly. I think they fixed it recently, but who knows. It takes sweet time to verify my login information fifty times per day and fails half the time lately. The community I mentioned as a plus is a poorly moderated latrine pit - it's useful mostly for less popular titles that spotty twattish little oiks don't visit. And so is the workstop - a few gems, but mostly loads of poorly supported crap (as if mod scene is anything but).
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
That's for developers and publishers to support, isn't it?
Offline mode? That's on Valve. Any online checks apart from Steam, yeah, that's on the developers.
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Again, for developers to implement.
And for Valve to fuck up. Like they do, even for games that make it simple and dump everything in one spot. It's almost worthless when I try it, because it just won't sync, even with everything on.
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Both Epic and Bethesda at the moment are banking on exclusives to reign in people
I think Epic is trying to use their "bigger payout for developers" as leverage to get other exclusives to get that hook, and then get more games in general, and then have the competitive platform. Valve could easily nip it in the bud by meeting their cut (or even just getting close), except without taking a lower cut for Unreal Engine games (just as if Epic gets a real store going, they won't lower their cut for people using other engines that also take cuts).
I don't consider Bethesda, UPlay, or Battle.net as competing in that market, because they're launchers specifically for their games. Origin is probably closest, but LOL it's EA.
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
because Gaben ate their lunch money or something
I've seen plenty of anecdotes of indie devs that were trying to work with Valve to get their game on Steam and Valve just starts blowing them off completely. That's one area where competition, if they can avoid getting that sort of appearance, can really hurt Valve and get that rift going.
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With regards to Valve taking 30%. That is standard across any affiliate agreement. Steam / GoG or whoever aren't really stores they are essentially a super affiliate.
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@DogsB said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I'm more worried about this nonsense.
You can only preorder Rage 2 for Bethesda's launcher right now, not Steam
Retailers only let you pre-order it for Bethesda.net.
They do realise that everyone and their dog starting a vod service is pushing us back to the pirate bay. The same bullshit is going to happen here.
I, for one, am happy they made preordering as hard as possible.
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@anonymous234 said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
But as I've observed many times, economic principles don't seem to apply to software
.Mostly because physical barriers don't exist. Multiple supermarket chains can coexist peacefully because every customer lives in a slightly different place and has a different closest store.
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I hear this Start Menu thing comes with Windows
Not all of them.
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@DogsB said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
with seven different passwords
I don't understand.
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@ChaosTheEternal said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
And for Valve to fuck up. Like they do, even for games that make it simple and dump everything in one spot.
I haven't had issues on my planet (
)UPlay, or Battle.net as competing in that market, because they're launchers specifically for their games. Origin is probably closest, but LOL it's EA.
UPlay does (or did) sell some third parties. I've got New Vegas there way back when - didn't work in my region, I contacted support, it suddenly did, then it stopped, then it worked again, then I got it on Steam and a year later Bethesda pulled one on people there as well and split it into RU/whatever and rest of the world regions. Seemed to work, all mods and everything, but the fuck was that for.
Origin actually has several handfuls - some older Square Enix titles, some Deep Silver titles (Metro) and also is selling some Ubisoft titles (though UPlay is still required). Guess they just put some stuff there and then stopped bothering.That's sort of a tell. If two other big AAAs which have BEEELIONS of investor cash at their disposal, couldn't take on Steam, because they didn't find anything they could offer (and Origin at least did try), what are the chances? At best it's going to be another Origin.
Valve just starts blowing them off completely
Some of them I'd have sent packing just the same. There is that annoying underdog attitude among indies that they aren't required to deliver, but just sit there and be pretty. And then they fail at even that. Steam is already full of crap, my ignore list is 1000+. Toby Fair, certainly some of them are legitimate complaints. I've no trouble imagining some aging hipster at Valve failing to move the rubber pad under his keister, because he just doesn't "see it" in some indie project.
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x-post to here:
@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: Dear Epic
StoreShit and other wannabe crap store exclusives without any added value whatsoever - GOG.Honestly, 12% instead of 30% cut is an 'added value' to me, same reason I fiddle with the sliders when I get Humble bundles. I want the indie developers to get as much of the money as possible.
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I've heard @Tsaukpaetra, and @blakeyrat, and I think one other person rant for pages about how god fucking awful Steam is to deal with as a developer. Just saying.
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@Gąska said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Multiple supermarket chains can coexist peacefully because every customer lives in a slightly different place and has a different closest store.
Amazon are busy working on that.
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The Epic Store does not come with Linux support, so until they sort that out they will get zero interest from me. Once they got Linux support added, maybe I can bother checking them out.
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
so until they sort that out they will get zero interest from me
What a coincidence, they have zero interest in you
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Epic keeps claiming my name is already in use (which I doubt somewhat), but I'm hesitant to use some random nonsense out of fear it'll stick and I can't change it.
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@kazitor You can change it once every two weeks.
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@pie_flavor that's good. When I'm sufficiently bored again, I might have another try then.
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@kazitor Well time was running out so I went again. I guess the name was actually taken, so I'm going with keyboard spam for now. I blame Fortnite.
Actually an incredibly painless experience, it just needs to tell you whether a name is available before you press submit and the password field is cleared.
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Eh. So Ol' Tim Swindley knows all that Fortnite monies will not last forever, so he's made plans for data, formerly yours, before search bar and other actual store features. Diagnostic purposes, with your consent, programming oopsies and all other usual excuses apply.
Reddit thread, lots of
, but there's no smell without fiber"The current implementation is a remnant left over from our rush to implement social features in the early days of Fortnite. It's actually my fault for pushing the launcher team to support it super quickly and then identifying that we had to change it," he wrote. "Since this issue came to the forefront we're going to fix it."
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@Applied-Mediocrity The fun part is also their lack of security and also a slight bit hipocrisy.
I mean, remember how Sweeny was whining about the MS Store being anti-competetive and would result in a monopoly? And here we are: The Epic Store buying exclusivity rights left and right.
Latest victim to this would be the backers for Phoenix Point - the kickstart for this game promised delivery either via Steam or GOG. Then they recently signed with Epic and ... poof ... gone are Steam and GOG. Any backers who want their games on those platforms will have to wait for a year.
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@Applied-Mediocrity I don't know. The stuff the OP points out is pretty weak, as later posts in the thread point out. Like this and this.
Hightlights:
- the store app uses Chromium, and Chromium needs to read the root certificates to do SSL. All of the accesses are with READ, so it's not like it could do anything funky.
- the massive amounts of traffic seem to be the guys own monitoring software that set up a proxy to route the traffic through. (Not sure if this is also the reason the store app accesses a DLL in that software's ("fiddler") directory - it could be that fiddler tries to inject itself into the store app).
I'm not saying that the Epic Store isn't shady or anything (I haven't used it), but most of the OP's stuff is not really a smoking gun. I'd be more worried about the Epic Store grabbing the steam friends file, but apparently that's something the installer asks you about (again, haven't used it, so who knows). And, well, "encrypting" it by XORing with ~0, if the posts in the thread are to be trusted. But that's more of to-be-expected-these-days incompetence than anything else.
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@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I'd be more worried about the Epic Store grabbing the steam friends file, but apparently that's something the installer asks you about
I don't remember it doing that, but i did install it a long time ago so it might have changed or I might have forgotten.
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@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I'd be more worried about the Epic Store grabbing the steam friends file, but apparently that's something the installer asks you about
My understanding is that it grabs the file containing information about your friends and entire Steam collection "for the purposes of friend import", then doesn't use it when you actually do the friend import. And it will grab the file for every Steam user it finds on the system upon installation of EGS, before you even log in. Why? Beats me!
Either way, the bullshit coming from Tim Sweeney is enough to make me stay far away from anything Epic Games. "The mere existence of Windows Store is anti-competetive!" -> "I need to buy exclusive deals for Epic Store because it's good for competition!" Yeah, no.
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@loopback0 I read a bit further, and there's this post:
It would be better if our launcher only touched localconfig.vdf after the user chooses to import Steam friends. After this was pointed out today, the Epic Games launcher team is going to work to do it that way instead. However, though this Steam file contains more data than friends, data other than hashed friend ids (such as Steam library contents) isn't and has never been parsed or sent to Epic, and hashed friend ids are only sent when choosing to import Steam friends.
So it seems that they indeed grab it without permission, and then keep it around in case the users chooses to import the friends. Shady? Maybe. But it's equally likely to just be laziness/incompetence/a workaround.
*Edit:*
'd
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@Atazhaia Not to mention that they do not have a wish list because, and I quote: "It enables sales culture!"
Also, those 30% Steam is taking only apply if you buy the game directly through the Steam store. You're perfectly allowed to sell Steam keys directly on your own website without incurring the 30%.
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@Atazhaia said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
Either way, the bullshit coming from Tim Sweeney is enough to make me stay far away from anything Epic Games. "The mere existence of Windows Store is anti-competetive!" -> "I need to buy exclusive deals for Epic Store because it's good for competition!" Yeah, no.
Sure, yeah, that's a reason I can get behind. I'm not particularly happy to have yet-another-launcher-store-system either. (Then again, Steam is overflowing with garbage; Origin is Origin; uPlay is great if you want to play AC, I guess -- so maybe it's time for something new?)
But that post on reddit? Largely FUD by someone who accidentally traced the store app but without any real understanding or analysis of what's going on.
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@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Atazhaia Not to mention that they do not have a wish list because, and I quote: "It enables sales culture!"
They put it on their roadmap, now that they have one:
https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/news/epic-games-store-on-trello?sessionInvalidated=true
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@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
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@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
They didn't really need one when they only had 5 games on it.
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
They didn't really need one when they only had 5 games on it.
Yeah, but they're listing a "shopping cart" as a long term feature.
What kind of monkeys are those guys employing?
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@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
But that post on reddit? Largely FUD by someone who accidentally traced the store app but without any real understanding or analysis of what's going on.
It mostly is (which is what I've said). The thing is - it seems to have gotten their attention awfully quick and the responses have been less than reassuring. I'd not trust the internets to have made a strategically sound move of misdirection to make them panic, but it seems to have worked rather well that way.
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@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
They didn't really need one when they only had 5 games on it.
Yeah, but they're listing a "shopping cart" as a long term feature.
I refer the Right Honorable User to the response I made some moments ago.
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
They didn't really need one when they only had 5 games on it.
Yeah, but they're listing a "shopping cart" as a long term feature.
I refer the Right Honorable User to the response I made some moments ago.
Yes, but that's not something I'd describe as "overly complex".
I mean, a shopping cart is pretty much in every fucking tutorial on how to build your own store website!
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@Parody said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Rhywden said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
@Parody Wait, they only recently added a "Search" function? For a store?
They didn't really need one when they only had 5 games on it.
Strange how that doesn't quite mesh with putting (or forgetting not to put) in various data collection features which apparently are important regardless of the number of games
"Slurp everything, care later"
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@cvi said in Epic Store (and other "Occupy Steam" movements):
I'm not saying that the Epic Store isn't shady or anything (I haven't used it), but most of the OP's stuff is not really a smoking gun.
They're all probably shady in one way or another (including Steam itself) but I haven't gone digging through what they all do. Folks already don't like the Epic Store because of the exclusivity deals so it's getting extra scrutiny; you'd hope that they'd see that and try to be a bit better because of it, but it looks like they're sticking to the "move fast and ask for forgiveness" bit.
I'd be more worried about the Epic Store grabbing the steam friends file, but apparently that's something the installer asks you about (again, haven't used it, so who knows).
I wanted to check this so I ran it in my Insider VM. The installer didn't ask me anything, but the program refuses to run because the virtual graphics card isn't supported so I didn't get to any questions it might have asked on first launch.
