The Outer Worlds becomes Epic exclusive - Because of fucking course it did

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

So why should I care about the complaints of others who defend Steam when it is nothing but a craven, lazy, cash hoarding relic of a bygone era?

It depends on the context.

In a thread about something becoming an epic exclusive, and not being on steam, you should care about the complaints of others about the epic launcher in that it informs why they feel this is a bad thing.

Outside of such a discussion, you certainly shouldn't care much at all, except I suppose in that less people liking the platform you do might mean it receives less support in the future. Unless the complaints are of a nature that you DO care about, like if it installs spyware or some shit.

I like steam better than the alternatives, myself. That's not to say I wouldn't like it more if it was better.

 

[AP 297]

It depends on the context.

In a thread about something becoming an epic exclusive, and not being on steam, you should care about the complaints of others about the epic launcher in that it informs why they feel this is a bad thing.

Outside of such a discussion, you certainly shouldn't care much at all, except I suppose in that less people liking the platform you do might mean it receives less support in the future. Unless the complaints are of a nature that you DO care about, like if it installs spyware or some shit.

I like steam better than the alternatives, myself. That's not to say I wouldn't like it more if it was better.

I avoid Epic launcher. It lacks security and has had some spyware controversies. I still think this is actually a good thing because it forces Steam to finally manage their platform or gasp make actual video games again.

Also, I remember when Fallout New Vegas was a Steam Exclusive. It is not like Steam never did this first. I honestly might never have used Steam had it not been for the fact that Fallout NV required Steam for a physical disk install.

So Epic isn't the first to do this. Steam has done it before them.

I mean the formula of a very successful game publisher(Valve instead of Epic) using their success of their recent video game (Portal 2/Half Life 2 instead of Fortnite) to land exclusive deals over their rival's platform (Stardock's Impulse instead of Valve's Steam in this case) isn't anything new sadly. Epic is just acting like Steam used to.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

i would absolutely not call the shovelware a "minor problem", since it's exactly that shovelware that has influenced the majority of separate subcommunities and hobbies/collections on steam.

want to hunt for achievements? why bother playing genuinely challenging games when that takes SKILL and EFFORT? just buy a bunch of spam titles, they'll net you like 5000 achievements each without having to push a button!

want a high Steam profile level? of course you do, that's why you'll use all those card bots to level up and get yourself like 50 sets of cheap ass cards from games that look just as cheap! sites like IndieGala still even say whether or not the games they bundle have trading cards, because back in the later greenlight days that was pretty much the only reason people bought Unity asset flips.

wanna collect game inventories? games like TF2, Portal or even BattleBlock Theater are way too pricey, but since you're broke as fuck you can always get random meme jpegs to put on your profile showcase from some garbage "game"! that one Abstractism game even had those fake TF2 australium weapons as "items", so don't worry about not having something to flex (and maybe scam people with)!

don't get me wrong, Epic can suck my testicles. i'm not using their ded store any time soon. but as much as i love using Steam for its convenience and the fact that it has other very good incentives for me to use it, i really would wish they'd at least go back to Greenlight and limit the amount of garbage titty puzzle games being shat out onto the store.

Are you actually serious right now?

Yes, I do in fact consider achievements earned as a total number, total steam level, cosmetics for a steam profile, and one method of scamming a mouth breather in a TF2 trade as absolutely the most minor of minor problems.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I avoid Epic launcher. It lacks security and has had some spyware controversies. I still think this is actually a good thing because it forces Steam to finally manage their platform or gasp make actual video games again.

Also, I remember when Fallout New Vegas was a Steam Exclusive. It is not like Steam never did this first. I honestly might never have used Steam had it not been for the fact that Fallout NV required Steam for a physical disk install.

So Epic isn't the first to do this. Steam has done it before them.

I mean the formula of a very successful game publisher(Valve instead of Epic) using their success of their recent video game (Portal 2/Half Life 2 instead of Fortnite) to land exclusive deals over their rival's platform (Stardock's Impulse instead of Valve's Steam in this case) isn't anything new sadly. Epic is just acting like Steam used to.

I mean, they used counterstrike to shove steam down our throats in the first place, so yeah, they're not morally better or anything. Just their product sucks less. Competition is usually a good thing though, even though apples are overpriced hipster crap I'm glad they exist because they keep Microsoft a little worried.

Are you actually serious right now?

Yes, I do in fact consider achievements earned as a total number, total steam level, cosmetics for a steam profile, and one method of scamming a mouth breather in a TF2 trade as absolutely the most minor of minor problems.

Wow, those are such non-problems I think I care a negative amount about them. Nah, maybe caring is only an absolute number, so I guess it's just zero.

But uh... wow... you think those "problems" are a convincing argument to any sane adult person?

 

[shartshooter]

I avoid Epic launcher. It lacks security and has had some spyware controversies. I still think this is actually a good thing because it forces Steam to finally manage their platform or gasp make actual video games again.

Also, I remember when Fallout New Vegas was a Steam Exclusive. It is not like Steam never did this first. I honestly might never have used Steam had it not been for the fact that Fallout NV required Steam for a physical disk install.

So Epic isn't the first to do this. Steam has done it before them.

I mean the formula of a very successful game publisher(Valve instead of Epic) using their success of their recent video game (Portal 2/Half Life 2 instead of Fortnite) to land exclusive deals over their rival's platform (Stardock's Impulse instead of Valve's Steam in this case) isn't anything new sadly. Epic is just acting like Steam used to.

Found this on /v/, pretty funny throwback. Could have been posted yesterday if you change some of the names lol

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Found this on /v/, pretty funny throwback. Could have been posted yesterday if you change some of the names lol
View attachment 702962

So, with posts like these, when I click the picture it's still unreadably small. Is there something I'm being stupid about here? Do you guys like paste this shit into something you can zoom in on? What is the deal?

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

Found this on /v/, pretty funny throwback. Could have been posted yesterday if you change some of the names lol
View attachment 702962

See, I used to be one of those guys. All pissy that my physical copy of New Vegas required Steam. But since I've misplaced the disc and haven't been able to find it in my 40 boxes of shite I'm actually really glad that I do have Steam since I don't even need that fucking disc anymore as the game is permanently tied to my account and I can redownload it any time I want.
My only gripe on that end is that I can't loan out any game disc that require Steam. Way back I got a friend of mine into the Warcraft series by installing Warcraft: Orcs and Humans on his computer since they allowed you to do a full install that makes the disc itself redundant.

My problem with Epic outweigh the problems I've ever had with Steam. Bad security, staff that don't help for shit if your account gets hacked, their determination to make their service mandatory (which is still one of my gripes with Steam), their relationship to a shady Chinese dataminer that loads any game they make with pay-to-win microtransactions, their exclusivity deals causing developers to break their promises to their customers when they advertised their products to be on Steam, their admission that they'll let developers opt out of reviews which can fuck over customers in the long run. It's kind of a horrid stew of rotten practices and I don't want a second serving of that shit.

 

[shartshooter]

So, with posts like these, when I click the picture it's still unreadably small. Is there something I'm being stupid about here? Do you guys like paste this shit into something you can zoom in on? What is the deal?

If you're on desktop and click the picture, the upper right will have a download button which loads the image full size into your browser. Pic is nothing special, just people bitching about Steam a decade ago

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

If you're on desktop and click the picture, the upper right will have a download button which loads the image full size into your browser. Pic is nothing special, just people bitching about Steam a decade ago

I think you're doing that image a disservice by not mentioning the proto-GAMERS RISE UP in there when someone mentioned a gamer Bill of Rights.

 

[Bagronkleton]

From here on they have solidified the only game they ever made worth anything was Fallout New Vegas

From what I've pieced together it's a wonder New Vegas even launched. Apparently Feargus Urquhart's dumbassery had a big part in Black Isle/obsidian's rise, decline, decline, slight rise, then bigger decline. Wonder where we're at now on the never ending obsidian coaster?

 

[bigbombguy2222]

I just realised that the acronym for the Epic Games Store is EGS.

Randy must be pissed.

 

[Ledian]

This is getting very silly and dumb on the part of Tencent/Epic. If they wants to grow the EGS, buying up exclusives is not the way to do it. EA proves that pretty damn well.
They need features, marketing, a real hit product/gimmick that will attract users to their platform. There has to be a reason you switch over to using EGS and while exclusives could be one reason, timed exclusives are a poor way of doing it because the consumer is just going to wait the timer out or not buy it at all. People don't like to change what they use once they're comfortable with what they have and Steam for many, is comfortable to use.
Additionally, if they want to go the exclusives route, Tencent/Epic need to curate and pay for development of actual in house exclusives or partnering with developers instead of just buying, really bribing, them to launch on their store first. It's extremely bad PR and has been so the entire time; I have no idea how the marketers in Epic can have their heads so far up their asses not to see this.

 

[vertexwindi]

Pic is nothing special, just people bitching about Steam a decade ago

What? 2010 wasn't a dec- oh. Oh noooo.

 

[AP 297]

See, I used to be one of those guys. All pissy that my physical copy of New Vegas required Steam. But since I've misplaced the disc and haven't been able to find it in my 40 boxes of shite I'm actually really glad that I do have Steam since I don't even need that fucking disc anymore as the game is permanently tied to my account and I can redownload it any time I want.
My only gripe on that end is that I can't loan out any game disc that require Steam. Way back I got a friend of mine into the Warcraft series by installing Warcraft: Orcs and Humans on his computer since they allowed you to do a full install that makes the disc itself redundant.

My problem with Epic outweigh the problems I've ever had with Steam. Bad security, staff that don't help for shit if your account gets hacked, their determination to make their service mandatory (which is still one of my gripes with Steam), their relationship to a shady Chinese dataminer that loads any game they make with pay-to-win microtransactions, their exclusivity deals causing developers to break their promises to their customers when they advertised their products to be on Steam, their admission that they'll let developers opt out of reviews which can fuck over customers in the long run. It's kind of a horrid stew of rotten practices and I don't want a second serving of that shit.

It was a decade ago for a lot of people. You've had a lot more experiences with Steam by this point and Epic is still new and unproven. Maybe in time Epic will improve their store and you might be as happy with them or happier than you were with steam. Then again maybe Epic will just waste this opportunity to insert themselves into the market and Fortnite is just a one hit wonder. A lot can happen in 10 years.

As for losing your copy of Fallout NV, I still have mine. It was part of a collectors edition. I have the deck of 54 and everything. Still, I have to admit it is nice to have games/saves on a cloud.

This is getting very silly and dumb on the part of Tencent/Epic. If they wants to grow the EGS, buying up exclusives is not the way to do it. EA proves that pretty damn well.
They need features, marketing, a real hit product/gimmick that will attract users to their platform. There has to be a reason you switch over to using EGS and while exclusives could be one reason, timed exclusives are a poor way of doing it because the consumer is just going to wait the timer out or not buy it at all. People don't like to change what they use once they're comfortable with what they have and Steam for many, is comfortable to use.
Additionally, if they want to go the exclusives route, Tencent/Epic need to curate and pay for development of actual in house exclusives or partnering with developers instead of just buying, really bribing, them to launch on their store first. It's extremely bad PR and has been so the entire time; I have no idea how the marketers in Epic can have their heads so far up their asses not to see this.

There wasn't much of a reason back in 2011 for me to want steam on my computer. I had to have their platform on my computer to play the games I wanted even if I had a disk. It is still the same now for a lot of publishers. Except with the Division 2 or The Outer Worlds as well as other games, you can opt for an alternative launcher. Back in 2011, Steam was your only choice in a lot of situations. I would argue that in a lot of ways was much worse.

What? 2010 wasn't a dec- oh. Oh noooo.

Yep, this unique brand of autism has been a recurring cycle that happens when a new upstart game publisher decides to make their platform the primary marketplace for games.

 

[Medicated]

Expect more of this, while Epic tries to shill their shitty store.

Steam set a pretty decent market standard (far from perfect, but given how much power Steam has, they do surprisingly little bullshit with it, it seems). Now Epic pops up with their store and they hope to datamine their piggybank customers. No, thanks, I say.

I would be very careful with Epic Store. Tencent has probably offered truckloads of money to the owner for him to give up the entire company to them.

“Fortnite” singlehandedly grossed a $3-billion profit for game developer Epic Games in 2018 and reportedly now has 200 million players. Unfortunately, Epic is a private company, but investors who want to profit from the popularity of “Fortnite” have options.

Fortnite Investments

The most direct public “Fortnite” winner is China’s TENCENT HOLDING/ADR (OTC: TCEHY), which owns a 40-percent stake in Epic.

In addition to Tencent, toy company Funko Inc. (NASDAQ: FNKO) landed a deal with Epic in July to produce “Fortnite”-branded toys and collectibles. The news sent the stock surging, and Funko shares finished the year up 93 percent.

This is part of Tencents play to gain control of the videogame market.

 

[Secret Asshole]

This is getting very silly and dumb on the part of Tencent/Epic. If they wants to grow the EGS, buying up exclusives is not the way to do it. EA proves that pretty damn well.
They need features, marketing, a real hit product/gimmick that will attract users to their platform. There has to be a reason you switch over to using EGS and while exclusives could be one reason, timed exclusives are a poor way of doing it because the consumer is just going to wait the timer out or not buy it at all. People don't like to change what they use once they're comfortable with what they have and Steam for many, is comfortable to use.
Additionally, if they want to go the exclusives route, Tencent/Epic need to curate and pay for development of actual in house exclusives or partnering with developers instead of just buying, really bribing, them to launch on their store first. It's extremely bad PR and has been so the entire time; I have no idea how the marketers in Epic can have their heads so far up their asses not to see this.

Tim Sweeny is a giant dumb cunt who thinks developers will win the store wars and not consumers. He starts whining about overhead and shit I could care less about. As a consumer, I don't really give a fuck about your troubles or how hard it is. I want the best value for my money. That's capitalism. If you're building a store for developers, you've already fucked up. He's really arrogant and basically got lucky with Fortnite. All Fortnite was was right place, right time.

He's also been shit talking Steam like "We don't sell porn or bad games" and I'm like nigger, shut your mouth. Your store is garbage, you look like you eat out of the garbage and you have to fucking give developers the budget of their entire game to go to your platform. PC gamers love choice and what is easy.

Valve solved the piracy problem long ago. Gabe realized piracy was a service problem, not a cost problem. Sweeny is taking the opposite approach and is probably pushing piracy back into the forefront for the first time in a long time, because its easier to pirate exclusives than to deal with a malware ridden launcher. That's the thing. This isn't a console war so to speak. Piracy on consoles is hard. Piracy on PC is piss easy. Eventually you're going to get people to go back to pirating because they've got hundreds, if not thousands invested in Steam and they're not going to want to switch back and forth for one launcher. That's why the exclusives won't work in the long run. If I wanted any exclusive game, I will just pirate it. I don't have to wait a year. That's what is going to happen. You will see a return to piracy as resentment towards Epic builds. If PS4 has an exclusive, I need to buy a PS4. If Epic has an exclusive, I'll torrent it. If you want your boatloads of money to divide the market with anti-consumer practices, fine. I'll choose not to support you. Piracy hasn't been a problem on PC for so long, these people forgot about it. You want to fuck me over, fine. I'll just fuck you back. Also, Ubi is putting most of its games on Epic, but I'll just buy from their store since you need to use their fucking launcher anyway.

Not to mention I loathe Tencent as a company and it already owns too much of the market anyway. I will pirate games that go exclusive on Epic. I'm not supporting a state-supported Chinese company which will eventually dictate, creatively, what we get to see. Fuck that.

EDIT:
And for those using the Modern War boycott as an example, its a false dichotomy. Modern Warfare, again, was easier to buy than to pirate. And it was on a dominant platform. I can boycott Epic and still get what I want through sheer piracy or through other gaming launchers I have. I will and can skip them because I don't like the Chinese, I don't like their attitude, and I think they're scum that are out for publishers and not my interests.

 

[Medicated]

Not to mention I loathe Tencent as a company and it already owns too much of the market anyway. I will pirate games that go exclusive on Epic. I'm not supporting a state-supported Chinese company which will eventually dictate, creatively, what we get to see. Fuck that.

Remember Tencent is a publicly owned company. And when you are a publicly owned company, the customers change from the people that use your services, to the shareholders.

 

[AP 297]

Tim Sweeny is a giant dumb cunt who thinks developers will win the store wars and not consumers. He starts whining about overhead and shit I could care less about. As a consumer, I don't really give a fuck about your troubles or how hard it is. I want the best value for my money. That's capitalism. If you're building a store for developers, you've already fucked up. He's really arrogant and basically got lucky with Fortnite. All Fortnite was was right place, right time.

He's also been shit talking Steam like "We don't sell porn or bad games" and I'm like nigger, shut your mouth. Your store is garbage, you look like you eat out of the garbage and you have to fucking give developers the budget of their entire game to go to your platform. PC gamers love choice and what is easy.

Valve solved the piracy problem long ago. Gabe realized piracy was a service problem, not a cost problem. Sweeny is taking the opposite approach and is probably pushing piracy back into the forefront for the first time in a long time, because its easier to pirate exclusives than to deal with a malware ridden launcher. That's the thing. This isn't a console war so to speak. Piracy on consoles is hard. Piracy on PC is piss easy. Eventually you're going to get people to go back to pirating because they've got hundreds, if not thousands invested in Steam and they're not going to want to switch back and forth for one launcher. That's why the exclusives won't work in the long run. If I wanted any exclusive game, I will just pirate it. I don't have to wait a year. That's what is going to happen. You will see a return to piracy as resentment towards Epic builds. If PS4 has an exclusive, I need to buy a PS4. If Epic has an exclusive, I'll torrent it. If you want your boatloads of money to divide the market with anti-consumer practices, fine. I'll choose not to support you. Piracy hasn't been a problem on PC for so long, these people forgot about it. You want to fuck me over, fine. I'll just fuck you back. Also, Ubi is putting most of its games on Epic, but I'll just buy from their store since you need to use their fucking launcher anyway.

Not to mention I loathe Tencent as a company and it already owns too much of the market anyway. I will pirate games that go exclusive on Epic. I'm not supporting a state-supported Chinese company which will eventually dictate, creatively, what we get to see. Fuck that.

EDIT:
And for those using the Modern War boycott as an example, its a false dichotomy. Modern Warfare, again, was easier to buy than to pirate. And it was on a dominant platform. I can boycott Epic and still get what I want through sheer piracy or through other gaming launchers I have. I will and can skip them because I don't like the Chinese, I don't like their attitude, and I think they're scum that are out for publishers and not my interests.

I have said frequently that I won't use Epic's Launcher at this point. Still, I really find calling Steam "Consumer Friendly" to be a farce.

First Steam's introduction was not a nice simple, "Would you like to download our launcher and have access to our vast library of games?". No it was "You will download our 3rd party launcher in order to play the games you bought or you can pound sand." That wasn't consumer friendly and people complained at the time that it was destroying the market for resale on PC games. Steam was pretty much lobbed on to everyone with their own brand of exclusives and did a lot of the same things that Epic is doing now. Steam could do it because they were printing cash from Half Life and Portal. There was nothing "service" about this. It was pure force; you downloaded it and had it connected or you didn't play your game. At least now, there are other launchers and services to use if you don't want the Epic Launcher for your 3rd party game.

Second, I would argue a lack of quality control is not consumer friendly. Having to pour through countless examples of fake video games, asset flips, achievement boosters, or just pure garbage to find worthwhile Indie projects is more than a disappointment. For the longest time Steam didn't even have refunds until they were forced to. They have chosen not to curate their content and have let the whole thing be curated by unpaid fans. That is hardly consumer friendly. The only thing recently I can think of as shameless was Anthem Dev's asking people who paid full price for their game to "beta" it after release. Probably one of the most consumer friendly actions over the last 40 was allowing higher quality Japanese Cars to compete with inept lower quality American Vehicles. Quality is a key aspect of consumer value. Ignoring it is disregarding your customers.

Third, people love to cite reviews as a crucial piece of consumer support. We have seen review bombs happen and sink titles under a pile of worthless off topic opinion. Of course it is okay, because those off topic opinions are "for the cause" and in a lot of peoples minds they aren't worthless. Let me throw in another possibility. I have to constantly explain this to people in real life, but a review bombing is nothing but a tool/tactic and you may not like it when someone who has a different agenda than yours uses it. Chinese gamers back in 2017 review bombed a steam game because it didn't offer Chinese Language support.

Steam review bombing is working, and Chinese players are a powerful new voice

Flooding Steam reviews has become a popular form of protest, and now Chinese players are using reviews to demand localization.

www.pcgamer.com

Suppose China or another actor decided to bury a game like this as a tactic to pull it off the market? Is that consumer friendly?

Yes, companies have done a lot of despicable things in neglecting their own futures and consumer value under the false pretense of "Shareholder value". I would argue though that Steam isn't innocent and they are now facing the exact thing they started with. Steam has gotten complacent and I would argue neglected their customers. Epic has a lot to prove to me before I can trust them, but now increasingly so does Steam.

Remember Tencent is a publicly owned company. And when you are a publicly owned company, the customers change from the people that use your services, to the shareholders.

Since it is a Chinese Company, I have to ask:

Is there really such a thing as a truly public Chinese Company under a communist system that pretty much has everything under complete state control?

 

[robobobo]

Steam is shit, there's no question. What little customer-friendly policy it has, it was dragged into, kicking and screaming. It happily heaps any amount of DRM a given publisher wants it to heap on its customers. And now it's trying to censor reviews under the guise of curtailing 'review bombing' when most of those bombs deserved to be there. However, EGS is more shit and seems happy to be there as long as they can bribe companies into giving them exclusives. The only distribution network I'm at all positive about is GOG, and they're far from perfect too.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

The issue isn't whether Steam is shit or not, it's whether Epic has anything worth uprooting the system for.

We all have Facebook, right? We use it to message grandma now and then. Now imagine if someone came around, going "This is like Facebook but better. Your data won't be sold and uh. That's it." How many do you think would change? You'd have to re-add every awkward classmate from 11 years ago or end up with an incomplete library of acquaintances. Nobody gives a shit about Facebook or social media of that caliber anymore, yet it has its uses.

Enter Epic. By proximity and ad campaigns alone, I've literally only heard of "we pay devs more" and a free game here and there; games I already own or that are $15 on Steam. I don't even know if it has a friends list. I don't know what it looks like. I've seen nothing of it outside "we pay devs more". Why the fuck should I as a consumer with +500 games on Steam and an inactive, yet complete list of my friends suddenly bother changing? A free game every 14 days that I won't get to keep? DotA? TF2? CSGO? Warframe?

It's just not a debate. There is nothing. Outside shilling for devs who already make their profits, there's nothing. The fact anyone even have the guts to bother defending Epic is honestly amazing. How anyone could care about a game launcher outside Steam and how integrated it is. It's honestly bordering on veganism in terms of good karma.