Epic Games Store snags Metro Exodus away from Steam

Another big-name exclusive opts for Epic's more favorable revenue share.

Read the whole story

 

[Causality]

Love how public opinion flips on a company once they go big. Give it 5-10 years, and I'm sure people's opinion of Epic will sour as well.

Going big wasn't what made people sour on Steam. Going from a strictly curated storefront to a "put whatever bullshit you want on here for a hundred bucks" flea market is what made people sour on Steam.

 

[firondraak]

Just means I'll buy the game for $20 in a year on a Steam sale. Or by then, I just won't care anymore because something else caught my interest.

 

[Statistical]

Seems rather bizarre that the legal agreement to put a game up for pre-order on Steam doesn't mandate that the game, you know, actually comes out on Steam.

I don't think any agreement that you have to keep selling the game forever on a given storefront. They are simply removing the game for sale on release day.

 

[Causality]

Seems rather bizarre that the legal agreement to put a game up for pre-order on Steam doesn't mandate that the game, you know, actually comes out on Steam.

I don't think any agreement that you have to keep selling the game forever on a given storefront. They are simply removing the game for sale on release day.

You'd imagine there'd be a certain minimum specified period, maybe 30 days somewhere in there. In any case, I bet there'll be one going forward. I don't see Valve liking developers using the Steam preorder system as a method to judge consumer interest before selling the game somewhere else.

 

[Graw-_@]

Aren't corporations people too?

No...the fact that corporations are legally considered people is probably the biggest reason the world is so fucked today.

It sickens me watching people blindly accept that as fact and act positively towards this.

 

[friedzombie456]

Edit: It's already featured in the article.

 

[Dyskresiac]

The article paints a picture that Epic Games isn't paying for these exclusives. I greatly dislike the spin that "Steam is dead and dying" that Ars writers spin these days.

Steam earned the ire of a lot of games journalists when Valve explicitly defended keeping their store largely uncensored. Most journalists wanted Steam to increase censorship and so they took it pretty personally (basically ever site I read had an op-ed about how Steam allowing a game to be published is identical to a full corporate endorsement of everything in that game).

It's pretty obvious from reading here, Kotaku, and PCGamer, that the hope is that Valve suffers a bit, repents, and starts taking recommendations from journalists about what should be allowed on their platform.

To Ars' credit, other then that one really embarrassing opinion piece, they keep it pretty low key; you can tell they don't like Valve as much anymore, but you can't tell if it's just because GabeN may have run over Sam's dog or it's something else. PCGamer and Kotaku have really committed to the narrative that Steam is embroiled in never ending controversy and vile behavior.

Ars and its readers love censorship. Anyone that speaks out against it here gets downvoted immediately. Because apparently corporations should be responsible for what us poor sensitive consumers see and hear, as media apparently has the magic ability to influence idiots into doing bad things.

Or it could be that Steam really isn't that good. It's fine to have the items on the platform, but it doesn't need to be at the expense of usability. If I know I want a game I can search for it and buy it. But if I DON'T know what I want there are few places worse than Steam. They take a stupid 30% cut from developers for the "honor" of being thrown in a pile of trash asset flips. Games from good indie devs are drowned off the front page within an hour due to some visual novel garbage. Not to mention that Valve used to be a developer of games people actually wanted. It can't have anything to do with any of that. Must be SJW. (eyeroll)

They get away with it because they know they're the only one on the block. But now they aren't. And the apologists are in full force as anyone would've predicted.

Well to be fair, i use it only because they happen to support the operating system i use. Epic doesn't so meh fuck em. I'm personally tired of being inundated by ads for a product i can't use anyway. It's been weeks of that shit every time i watch a youtube video since it came out.

And i was responding generally about the attitude towards censorship here...not steam per se. But i do remember the article about when steam allowed adult games here and anyone that said they didn't care about steam having adult games wasn't looked upon too highly.

I think it's less censorship and that they're adult and moreso that they're absolute trash cash grabs. Nobody gives a shit when Witcher 2 opens with nudity and a sex scene not to mention the "Get with all the women" sidequests. If filtering out BAD games is censorship then I'm pro censorship too. But it's arguable whether or not that drivel is even a game...

It's further diluting their storefront like GameStop filling their stores with ThinkGeek crap. It's not censorship to say that plushies and overpriced plastic statues doesn't help or aid my video game buying experience in any way. Make another store for that.

If there's 3 things long time Arsians love its functional, minimalist, and elegant. Steam is none of those things, and adding garbage fanfics to the platform improves none of that so Ars doesn't like it. It's really that simple.

 

[TacoBuster]

Seems rather bizarre that the legal agreement to put a game up for pre-order on Steam doesn't mandate that the game, you know, actually comes out on Steam.

Probably an oversight. But you can bet those contracts will prevent this in the future. There might be an out if the game is outright cancelled, but otherwise they'll probably add language to the effect that any game put up for pre-order on Steam must be sold on Steam for at least a year after release.

 

[Dyskresiac]

I wish that GOG Galaxy or Steam or an open source project attempted to coalesce launchers so all we have to do is have one relatively lightweight launcher that you'd be able to toggle between marketplaces, that way we could have the benefits of competition without all the wasted RAM on apps in the background.

Unfortunately so long as steam remains DRM that's never going to happen. And forget any games like Cities Skylines with Workshop integration. Those are a nightmare to work with Family Sharing much less a separate storefront.

If it did it'd likely work like the SteamVR launhing from WindowsMR Portal. (IE: Barely. 75% of the time. With 200% of the resources.)

 

[Graw-_@]

The article paints a picture that Epic Games isn't paying for these exclusives. I greatly dislike the spin that "Steam is dead and dying" that Ars writers spin these days.

Steam earned the ire of a lot of games journalists when Valve explicitly defended keeping their store largely uncensored. Most journalists wanted Steam to increase censorship and so they took it pretty personally (basically ever site I read had an op-ed about how Steam allowing a game to be published is identical to a full corporate endorsement of everything in that game).

It's pretty obvious from reading here, Kotaku, and PCGamer, that the hope is that Valve suffers a bit, repents, and starts taking recommendations from journalists about what should be allowed on their platform.

To Ars' credit, other then that one really embarrassing opinion piece, they keep it pretty low key; you can tell they don't like Valve as much anymore, but you can't tell if it's just because GabeN may have run over Sam's dog or it's something else. PCGamer and Kotaku have really committed to the narrative that Steam is embroiled in never ending controversy and vile behavior.

Ars and its readers love censorship. Anyone that speaks out against it here gets downvoted immediately. Because apparently corporations should be responsible for what us poor sensitive consumers see and hear, as media apparently has the magic ability to influence idiots into doing bad things.

Or it could be that Steam really isn't that good. It's fine to have the items on the platform, but it doesn't need to be at the expense of usability. If I know I want a game I can search for it and buy it. But if I DON'T know what I want there are few places worse than Steam. They take a stupid 30% cut from developers for the "honor" of being thrown in a pile of trash asset flips. Games from good indie devs are drowned off the front page within an hour due to some visual novel garbage. Not to mention that Valve used to be a developer of games people actually wanted. It can't have anything to do with any of that. Must be SJW. (eyeroll)

They get away with it because they know they're the only one on the block. But now they aren't. And the apologists are in full force as anyone would've predicted.

Well to be fair, i use it only because they happen to support the operating system i use. Epic doesn't so meh fuck em. I'm personally tired of being inundated by ads for a product i can't use anyway. It's been weeks of that shit every time i watch a youtube video since it came out.

And i was responding generally about the attitude towards censorship here...not steam per se. But i do remember the article about when steam allowed adult games here and anyone that said they didn't care about steam having adult games wasn't looked upon too highly.

I think it's less censorship and that they're adult and moreso that they're absolute trash cash grabs. Nobody gives a shit when Witcher 2 opens with nudity and a sex scene not to mention the "Get with all the women" sidequests. If filtering out BAD games is censorship then I'm pro censorship too. But it's arguable whether or not that drivel is even a game...

It's further diluting their storefront like GameStop filling their stores with ThinkGeek crap. It's not censorship to say that plushies and overpriced plastic statues doesn't help or aid my video game buying experience in any way. Make another store for that.

If there's 3 things long time Arsians love its functional, minimalist, and elegant. Steam is none of those things, and adding garbage fanfics to the platform improves none of that so Ars doesn't like it. It's really that simple.

Well until i find another way to purchase linux games online using cards i can buy from gas stations, corner stores and just about anywhere else, that's what i've got. It's funny though, i manage not to see any of the things you describe by simply altering the filters for the types of things steam shows me. There's an account wide setting and filters for individual searches.

I personally don't see any of the interactive fiction or hentai crap because i just filter it out. It's real easy...took me like 30 seconds.

But ya know...somebody may really want that shit...and might like a reasonable place to get it from. I could care less...i look for things that interest me and don't really give two shits what other people are interested in and it's pretty easy to just not have that crap show up. i think it's more arsians don't know how to setup account preferences or search filters.

I mean i could post some screenshots of my steam browsing list if you want...it's got zero adult shit or interactive fiction...but there is this little note about a bunch of shit filtered out based on my preferences. Those'd be windows exclusives, hentai shit and interactive fiction. Guess what shows up instead...a bunch of games.

 

[Voldenuit]

Love how public opinion flips on a company once they go big. Give it 5-10 years, and I'm sure people's opinion of Epic will sour as well.

Going big wasn't what made people sour on Steam. Going from a strictly curated storefront to a "put whatever bullshit you want on here for a hundred bucks" flea market is what made people sour on Steam.

Playing devil's advocate here, if Valve had been strict on curation, would we have gotten indie gems like Stardew Valley, Celeste, Cave Story, Papers Please, Iconoclasts, Shovel Knight, or Obra Dinn?

What about smaller, even lesser-known games like The Thin Silence, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Strange Telephone, LiEat, Alicemare, Detention, or One Shot? There are even great games on Steam made using RPG Maker, games that would never have been able to raise the capital to publish through traditional means.

I have no problems with the number of games on Steam. I have not run into asset flips or fake games (although I know they exist), and Valve has taken steps to weed those out in recent times, too.

XBLA was an example of a platform that was over-curated, and indie devs were at the mercy of Microsoft as to when they could launch their titles (usually taking second fiddle to AAA studios). Heck, they were even curtailed on issuing patches to fix known bugs.

I'd take Steam, brambles and all, over that.

 

[Dyskresiac]

A

Well until i find another way to purchase linux games online using cards i can buy from gas stations, corner stores and just about anywhere else, that's what i've got. It's funmy though, i manage not to see any of the things you describe by simply altering the filters for the types of things steam shows me. There's an account wide setting and filters for individual searches.

I personally don't see any of the interactive fiction or hentai crap because i just filter it out. It's real easy...took me like 30 seconds.

But ya know...somebody may really want that shit...and might like a reasonable place to get it from. I could care less...i look for things that interest me and don't really give two shits what other people are interested in and it's pretty easy to just not have that crap show up. i think it's more arsians don't know how to setup account preferences or search filters.

I mean i could post some screen shots of my steam browsing list if you want...it's got zero adult shit...but there is this little note about a bunch of shit filtered out based on my preferences. Those'd be windows exclusives, hentai shit and interactive fiction. Guess what shows up instead...a bunch of games.

I come from more of a developer perspective myself. Simply put, with the mounds of trash you need to filter through a game I make or a game a friend has made is tough to find unless you know what you are looking for. When you treat every asset flip as equal to a game someone spent a decade making it really isn't pro-developer. (And saying these scam artists are developer is a joke. That's like saying I threw a football in my back yard and I'm "basically" an NFL player now.)

Nor is it it forward customer thinking. Should we really obfuscate the experience of 99.99% of our clientele because maybe ONE (presumably) GUY who wants that?

Until "Effortless" is a filter or tag people can add to a "game" the filters do little good as they might filter good games simply because their poor algorithm groups them together somehow. I don't filter because maybe a GOOD adult-ish game will come across Steam one day. Like maybe a sequel to Doki Doki Literature Club.

Which again is my point. This isn't nor ever was about censorship. It's about bad games being bad. As a programmer it's not hard to put out an asset flip and get it on Steam. And it should be.

 

[Dyskresiac]

Love how public opinion flips on a company once they go big. Give it 5-10 years, and I'm sure people's opinion of Epic will sour as well.

Going big wasn't what made people sour on Steam. Going from a strictly curated storefront to a "put whatever bullshit you want on here for a hundred bucks" flea market is what made people sour on Steam.

Playing devil's advocate here, if Valve had been strict on curation, would we have gotten indie gems like Stardew Valley, Celeste, Cave Story, Papers Please, Iconoclasts, Shovel Knight, or Obra Dinn?

What about smaller, even lesser-known games like The Thin Silence, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Strange Telephone, LiEat, Alicemare, Detention, or One Shot? There are even great games on Steam made using RPG Maker, games that would never have been able to raise the capital to publish through traditional means.

I have no problems with the number of games on Steam. I have not run into asset flips or fake games (although I know they exist), and Valve has taken steps to weed those out in recent times, too.

XBLA was an example of a platform that was over-curated, and indie devs were at the mercy of Microsoft as to when they could launch their titles (usually taking second fiddle to AAA studios). Heck, they were even curtailed on issuing patches to fix known bugs.

I'd take Steam, brambles and all, over that.

I know you're playing devil's advocate here but it isn't really difficult to tell what is an asset flip and what isn't. None of the games you listed we're solely assets from UE. You can publish a game using RPGMakerMV on Steam but it must include all custom assets.

That might not weed them all out but it would be a giant step in the right direction. I can't tell if people who aren't playing devil's advocate genuinely don't understand what goes into making games (and therefore should leave the discussion to those that do) or they come from some bizzaro HR world where "everyone must be treated equal" when clearly they're not. Writing an algorithm might be tough... But it's pretty easy to tell at even a glance.

 

[bushrat011899]

I know you're playing devil's advocate here but it isn't really difficult to tell what is an asset flip and what isn't. None of the games you listed we're solely assets from UE. You can publish a game using RPGMakerMV on Steam but it must include all custom assets.

Ok, that causes more issues than it solves. Stock assets exist for a good reason. I'm quite a good programmer but I cannot compose music or make artwork for the life of me. If I have a great idea for a game mechanic, or a story, why can't I publish my work because I legitimately and legally used stock assets?

I understand your reasoning, but if you're going down this road you might as well just move to a fully curated list.

 

[Raider238]

This is bad news of the future of Linux gaming. The previous Metro games that are available on steam run on Linux. The Epic game store is windows only. This makes me sad because there aren't that many big name games on Linux.

 

[Dyskresiac]

I know you're playing devil's advocate here but it isn't really difficult to tell what is an asset flip and what isn't. None of the games you listed we're solely assets from UE. You can publish a game using RPGMakerMV on Steam but it must include all custom assets.

Ok, that causes more issues than it solves. Stock assets exist for a good reason. I'm quite a good programmer but I cannot compose music or make artwork for the life of me. If I have a great idea for a game mechanic, or a story, why can't I publish my work because I legitimately and legally used stock assets?

I understand your reasoning, but if you're going down this road you might as well just move to a fully curated list.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Obligatory car analogy, just because I can make tires doesn't mean I can make a car. Granted the analogy is a little unfair to programmers as I couldn't come up with a better example, not being a car person myself

But I'm in the same boat. Programmer, maybe story, can't draw a circle if my life depended on it. However in indie development there's so many ways around that. Look at things like West of Loathing, VVVVVVV, Hacknet, or Thomas Was Alone.

Thomas walks the line for sure, but even basic geometric shapes aren't technical "assets" in an editor. A curated list would be ideal but it doesn't mean it has to be strict. Having a minimum non monetary height restriction would fix s lot of this

 

[lordcheeto]

Curious what Valve's justification is for calling this "unfair to Steam customers". Literally nothing changes for customers that have purchased the game through Steam. It's single player, so it's not like Steam social features matter. Barely anything changes for customers that plan on getting the game going forward. And it's a timed exclusive.

> Will Metro Exodus ever return to Steam?
> Yes - Metro Exodus will return to Steam and on other store fronts after 14th February 2020.

 

[Khronikos]

Sony locked down my main account name lol. There is literally no way I would go to Epic games based on a variety of factors, and that is one of the big ones. But I don't like Fortnite at all. I have no reason to invest in them. I might even dislike Fortnite in some ways. Epic can moneyhat the world for all I care. Never installing them.

 

[Marclev]

Does anybody know what the refund policy is like with the Epic Store?

A major reason for me only to use Steam to buy games is that you can refund for any reason, which basically means every game has a demo.

 

[flxmmr]

Easiest thing would be to just force them to be interoperable by law (friends list, download interface, ...). That way each could implement their own background stuff, management tools and storefronts but everyone could use the client of their liking/OSS-clients would be possible. Actually this model should work well for breaking up any of the platform monopolies built on citizen information/network effects.

 

[Voldenuit]

Does anybody know what the refund policy is like with the Epic Store?

A major reason for me only to use Steam to buy games is that you can refund for any reason, which basically means every game has a demo.

Their refund policy is now the same as Steam's.

Epic Games Store Refund Policy

When are products eligible for a refund?
All games are eligible for refund within 14 days of purchase for any reason, unless you have played the game for 2 hours.

You will not be eligible for refunds for games from which you have been banned or for which you have otherwise violated the terms of service.

 

[dantesan]

Easiest thing would be to just force them to be interoperable by law (friends list, download interface, ...). That way each could implement their own background stuff, management tools and storefronts but everyone could use the client of their liking/OSS-clients would be possible. Actually this model should work well for breaking up any of the platform monopolies built on citizen information/network effects.

I'd love to see that happen but then we'd just have lobbyists from each company paying politicians to make it un-happen most likely.

Look no further than our current FCC Director for example.

 

[doalwa]

Don't quite know what to think about this.

On one hand, it's about time that Valve got some serious competition.
As others have noted, it might just lead to them again giving a fuck, fixing some of Steam's most glaring issues..and maybe...I know, it's a giant maybe...develop some new games?


On the other hand, the balkanization of the PC platform continues...Steam, UPlay, Origin, Discord, now the Epic game store.

I still think that gaming on the PC has it's fair share of benefits over console gaming (usually more control over the graphics settings, better performance and loading times, slightly lower game prices) but I'll check out the PS5 next year until I decide if upgrading my GTX1080 will be worth it.

 

[dodgyG33za]

A better approach to exclusivity would be for game developers to day to Steam, Valve etc that the price is x + whatever margin the shopfronts want to add. And then let consumers decide where to buy it.

 

[Trudel]

I don't get the rage at exclusivity. Before Epic came along most PC Games were "exclusive" to Steam. From Epic's point of view eclusives make sense, how else would they get people to buy n their store? Better features/usability than Steam some might say, but that's kind of hard when your new on the block. Given some time their platform might evolve and put pressure on Steam to improve.

Many people commenting on here also seam to want competition (so they'll ultimately have to pay less for games I assume), but don't want to install another storefront. How is that supposed to work?

 

[SiobSK]

Not gonna lie, I think competition is good but also I really don't want to install YET ANOTHER game platform to buy shit on. This is incredibly annoying now. Kinda lost interest in buying the game now. More power to those that are happy but the move just isn't for me.

Sadly, this is the mindset most gamers have (including me) which is why Steam has a monopoly of the market at the moment. We always start with the argument "I want more competition but......." then lazy reasons why we buy from Steam anyway. Look at GOG, everyone "loves" them for their pro-consumer stance and great policies, people sing them high praises all the time but they are barely a blimp in Steam's radar. Their existence had not had any meaningful effect on Steam.

And the result is it takes a dirty ambitious company like Epic to take on a monopolistic one like Steam. The silver lining in all this is it did make me realize how useless the fake platitudes we gamers say about competition, what we should be doing is buying more things outside the Steam marketplace. And I plan to do more of that from now on.

 

[tdlf]

I'm hopeful we get to a point where publishers will launch on all platforms with wholesale pricing and let the distributors mark it up. Set your game price to distributors at $40 or whatever and let them add their markup. If Steam is 30% and the game ends up being $60, and Epic is 12% and the game ends up being $45, well, the market will sort that out.

I wonder, does Steam have the ability / has it ever policed pricing at all or is it a widget that the owner makes and change on a whim?

It’s an agreement between the dev/publisher and Valve. We can’t just change the prices on a whim. Valve has also engaged in exclusivity shenanigans before, but since they’re the most common storefront it doesn’t come up as a problem much. Make no mistake: Devs can and do get preferential treatment for releasing first on Steam, or only on Steam. This is business, and Valve isn’t any different in this regard.

Another fun fact: On Steam, if you want to release on Linux or MacOS before Windows, you can’t. You may release exclusively on Windows, or simultaneously across OS’s, as long as you support Windows. You may not release a game on Steam if it does not run on Windows day one.

 

[tdlf]

A better approach to exclusivity would be for game developers to day to Steam, Valve etc that the price is x + whatever margin the shopfronts want to add. And then let consumers decide where to buy it.

Steam is the Wal-Mart of digital distribution. If you want to release on Steam, you’re either very huge or you take what Valve offers.

 

[elh]

I find it annoying that my 300+ games collection is getting fragmented with these stupid always running-in the background stores, but I guess competition is good and should result in more polished experience and lower prices so yay!

I also think in the long run most games publishers will publish on many stores anyway - like they release on both iOS and Android, for example...

 

[Violynne]

I will *never* understand why a publisher will purposely close avenues of revenue, turn around and blame piracy, then do it again when the next title is released.

It's 2019. There's no such thing as "exclusive". What do they intend to do with this move, sell more PCs?

 

[dizdizzie]

I am a little baffled by some of the reaction to this, or just there being Steam competitors in general.

Things the PC does that consoles don't (I also game on console, so this isn't some neck beard thing):

- ALL of the mods, not just some small percent of them
- virtually infinite backward compatibility
- emulation
- you decide the price/power you want (or can get something cheap if you cannot afford better - no set price to have to decide around, etc.)
- you decide the settings of the game, if you dont like a feature, you turn it off (etc.).
- you are not beholden to one online store provided by whoever made all or part of the hardware you using (no dell or Alienware game store you have to use).


"I dont want to have another launcher" Why not? What is the issue here? Even if you have a gaming potato, you can simple not run the service until you want to run one of it's games. If it's about remembering where a game is, desktop icons work wonder for this (or something similar, with Start Menu groups or desktop folder or of the like).

"More account is less secure" I guess. I mean, yes, that is technically true, but I feel that ship has already sailed. Every place you have ever used your CC is a point of failure, and most of you have been using social media and Google service for years. One or two more gaming storefronts isn't really going to move the needle. I am not saying you should rejoin Facebook, but also having GoG and Epic (etc.) doesn't seem to be moving the needle much in terms of that stuff.


Really, what it all basically reads like is Valve/Steam fanboyism (and fangirlism), but using that as a basis for an argument isn't going to work well in most places, so people come up with other "reasons".

Valve made Half Life, and then made Steam, which "saved PC gaming" (extraordinary claims require...), so everyone wants to keep trucking along with Ma Bell. It's comfortable.


Exclusives are probably a necessary evil for a while for competition to take off, but I look forward to the day where digital purchases mimic buying a disc (choose your store).


PS - also, if exclusives are so bad, home come none of you complain when it favors Valve/Stream vs someone else? Again, reeks of fanpersonism.

Steam doesn't have enforced exclusives for third-party developers. There are no deals that forbid developers from also distributing games themselves. In fact, steam allows developers to generate keys for games sold through other stores.

Epic, on the other hand, is throwing money around, getting developers to only release on their store. In this case, pulling a game from Steam after a pre-sale period.

Now, there are many games that are only available on Steam because the publisher/developers haven't made the investment to make their game available elsewhere. (They often can't justify the expense given Steam's dominant market position.) De facto exclusivity isn't great, but I'd argue it's a hell of a lot better than contractually enforced exclusivity.

Steam became huge because of Valves' own games which required Steam to work. Valve could have some nice exclusives if they kept making games like that did 10 years ago. In 2007 it was Half Life 2 episode 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal. In 2008 Left 4 Dead, in 2009 sequel. Then it was just Portal 2, CS:GO and Dota 2 around 2013. Then nothing for years and now that shitty card game. I hope Valve will make games again (that shitty card game doesn't count).

 

[Lycanite]

Unless Epic Games or Discord make their stores available on Linux they are irrelevant to me and others in the small but growing percent of gamers they like to have control over their system. Hopefully Valve will change how much they take to be more competitive. That said they're doing amazing things for Linux gaming and unless these new stores come to Linux, I hope they just die off because its taking things a step backwards.

 

[Asecondname]

Love how public opinion flips on a company once they go big. Give it 5-10 years, and I'm sure people's opinion of Epic will sour as well.

Going big wasn't what made people sour on Steam. Going from a strictly curated storefront to a "put whatever bullshit you want on here for a hundred bucks" flea market is what made people sour on Steam.

Playing devil's advocate here, if Valve had been strict on curation, would we have gotten indie gems like Stardew Valley, Celeste, Cave Story, Papers Please, Iconoclasts, Shovel Knight, or Obra Dinn?

What about smaller, even lesser-known games like The Thin Silence, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Strange Telephone, LiEat, Alicemare, Detention, or One Shot? There are even great games on Steam made using RPG Maker, games that would never have been able to raise the capital to publish through traditional means.

I have no problems with the number of games on Steam. I have not run into asset flips or fake games (although I know they exist), and Valve has taken steps to weed those out in recent times, too.

XBLA was an example of a platform that was over-curated, and indie devs were at the mercy of Microsoft as to when they could launch their titles (usually taking second fiddle to AAA studios). Heck, they were even curtailed on issuing patches to fix known bugs.

I'd take Steam, brambles and all, over that.

Absolutely. People seem to forget how strong the call was for Steam to deregulate. Or they forget how furious the market was when indie gem of the moment 37 was not immediately on Steam. The one thing I wish Valve would do is shut games without 1000 sales from my discovery queue.

 

[sig313]

Love how public opinion flips on a company once they go big. Give it 5-10 years, and I'm sure people's opinion of Epic will sour as well.

Going big wasn't what made people sour on Steam. Going from a strictly curated storefront to a "put whatever bullshit you want on here for a hundred bucks" flea market is what made people sour on Steam.

Playing devil's advocate here, if Valve had been strict on curation, would we have gotten indie gems like Stardew Valley, Celeste, Cave Story, Papers Please, Iconoclasts, Shovel Knight, or Obra Dinn?

What about smaller, even lesser-known games like The Thin Silence, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Strange Telephone, LiEat, Alicemare, Detention, or One Shot? There are even great games on Steam made using RPG Maker, games that would never have been able to raise the capital to publish through traditional means.

I have no problems with the number of games on Steam. I have not run into asset flips or fake games (although I know they exist), and Valve has taken steps to weed those out in recent times, too.

XBLA was an example of a platform that was over-curated, and indie devs were at the mercy of Microsoft as to when they could launch their titles (usually taking second fiddle to AAA studios). Heck, they were even curtailed on issuing patches to fix known bugs.

I'd take Steam, brambles and all, over that.

I know you're playing devil's advocate here but it isn't really difficult to tell what is an asset flip and what isn't. None of the games you listed we're solely assets from UE. You can publish a game using RPGMakerMV on Steam but it must include all custom assets.

That might not weed them all out but it would be a giant step in the right direction. I can't tell if people who aren't playing devil's advocate genuinely don't understand what goes into making games (and therefore should leave the discussion to those that do) or they come from some bizzaro HR world where "everyone must be treated equal" when clearly they're not. Writing an algorithm might be tough... But it's pretty easy to tell at even a glance.

It isn't the use of assets from a third party that is the bad thing with asset flips. It's the 'flip' that is the key word here, not 'asset'. Games that take from a few hours, to maybe a couple of weeks to make. Horribly broken games.

Many successful games use third party assets. PUBG is one example.

 

[clonitza]

No PC gamers want console-style exclusivity wars on PC!

It's not like you have to buy another PC.
Sorry but Valve got lazy and barely updated Steam in the past few years, it looks old and dated so it's about time for some real competition to stir things up + I prefer devs retain as much as possible, maybe 10% more means not going bankrupt.

 

[vlam]

I don't get the rage at exclusivity. Before Epic came along most PC Games were "exclusive" to Steam. From Epic's point of view eclusives make sense, how else would they get people to buy n their store? Better features/usability than Steam some might say, but that's kind of hard when your new on the block. Given some time their platform might evolve and put pressure on Steam to improve.

I'm not sure how this eludes so many people but...

Publishers deciding not to publish on a podunk backwater store because there's minimal return to that effort is not the same as a store bribing the publisher to actively avoid the biggest markets. Indeed, there has been plenty of people complaining that their game of choice isn't available on their platform of choice, but that ire was directed at publishers, not stores, because the publishers were responsible for those decisions.

Now, Epic is responsible for the decision. Hence Epic draws the ire.

 

[Eredu]

I see Metro: Exodus at $49.99 on the Epic store, as opposed to $59.99 on Steam. That might be worth the effort.

The game is 59.99€ on the Epic store too? Are they screwing over Europeans again or is it just me?

 

[Hagen Stein]

Ah competition is good, but leaving me to manage multiple PC game platforms/stores is not what I had in mind.

You know that saying: "When a service is free, you're not the customer. You're the product."

I find it's a bit similar with competition. It's good for the competitors, not for the consumers. Or does Deep Silver lower the price of that game equal to the amount they're saving?

And as mentioned a couple of times: it gets more complicated for consumers, who need to wade thru dozens of stores (just an annoyance) and spread their data around [/i](a real security concern these days)[/i].

 

[nkrisc]

I have zero interest in installing and maintain an account for yet another storefront. I use Steam and the Blizzard launcher, and that's it (only because of prior investments in each). Any games not on those? Guess I just won't play them. No big deal, they're just video games.

 

[mikiev]

"I dont want to have another launcher" Why not? What is the issue here? Even if you have a gaming potato, you can simple not run the service until you want to run one of it's games. If it's about remembering where a game is, desktop icons work wonder for this (or something similar, with Start Menu groups or desktop folder or of the like).

For me, as I mentioned earlier, it is having to install multiple DRM schemes on my drive.

I got a free copy of Farcry 5, for buying a Samsung SSD, but dislike having to infect my drive with Uplay's Denuvo DRM just to play said game, and to have to install uPlay's launcher to play the game.

ditto for needing Origin to get access to Dragon Age: Inquisition

If it was just a storefront/ad platform I wouldn't mind, but I don't want multiple versions of their DRM cruft on my drive...