But why do you feel like you’re entitled to be able to shop around for the cheapest price on a game? I won’t deny that’s great, but it’s Epic’s game…they should be able to charge what they want and distribute their game how they like. I may or may not buy it on release, I might be too busy and wait for winter. If it’s still $60, IDGAF. I’ve been waiting to play it for this long, and when I get around to it I’ll pay what it’s going for. Or actually what 2 copies are going for.
What entitled? I said that it’s poor for consumers. It is. It reduces competition and means consumers don’t see the benefit of lower pricing. “Entitled” has nothing to do with it. It’s objectively worse for game consumers than when games are available on Steam and thus are in the open market with 5-10+ different places working to get your business. The real joke is that Epic launched itself with glowing self-praise about how pro-consumer they were because Steam had “competition” but there’s a distinct difference between competition as a game platform and competition as a market outlet.
Well I’ll turn it around then. Why should Epic be obligated to do what’s (or what you consider to be) good for consumers? As far as I’m concerned, they’re doing something very, very good for me, a consumer. They developed a game I’ve been waiting on for years, and they’re going to let me buy it in September for $60.
Some studios may find for whatever reason that releasing their game on Steam and other platforms is the way to go. But I doubt they’re doing it because it’s the best thing for the consumer.
They’re not. But I’m not sure why you’re so defensive about people talking about it. Epic doesn’t owe anyone shit and we don’t owe Epic shit. Epic is, presumably, out to get our money so an informed consumer should know be aware and make their decisions accordingly.
No they didn’t. 2K/Gearbox developed a game. Epic just threw a bag of money at them for the exclusive distribution rights. Epic didn’t develop anything in this scenario any more than Walmart develops the merchandise lines that they exclusively sell.
September on consoles and PC via Epic, March on Steam.
Fair enough, doesn’t matter one way or the other.
I’m not defensive about people talking about it, it just seems like much ado about nothing. Or like a bunch of people want to be able to buy a highly anticipated AAA game for $35 a month after release because reasons.
ETA:
ANOTHER point…it’s not like it’s locked up in Epic’s launcher vault for evernever. Just pretend the real release isn’t until March, and it’ll be a better version by then because there’ll be patches.
We all weigh things differently. I enjoyed Borderlands 1/2 but not enough to be blindly excited about it and I think that Epic’s anti-consumer behavior is worth addressing. I certainly can’t make you care (or really want to) but the topic of why some people were opposed to Epic came up and I was offering one perspective. It has nothing to do with “entitlement” or demanding 50% off games a month after release (which hasn’t really been a thing for years unless a game bombs).
If being an epic exclusive for 6 months means gearbox has the money to keep making borderlands games, then I’m all for it and I’ll be waiting in 2020 with 60 bucks for Steam.
Yeah, I seriously doubt that the profitability of BL3 or chance at another game will ride on it being an Epic exclusive.
Ok, I went and read some articles about the Epic exclusivity, and read some gag reddit threads.
Based on what I found there, I double down on my ‘entitlement’ statements.
I reckon I’ll buy it on Epic, then when it comes on Steam I’ll transfer my code.
Yeah, well, welcome to Reddit? 
Yeah, but only because Randy Pitchford walked back from the deal some when he saw the shitstorm brewing. Which, good on him I suppose.
That doesn’t change the fact that platform- and console-exclusives are absolutely a shit marketing ploy that fucks consumers. Nakedly so. *Deliberately *so. The whole point is to coerce you into buying a gaming system or subscribe to a platform you hadn’t (for whatever reason of yours) ; not by improving said systems or platforms or do a thing about those reasons, which are still valid, but by making the option you didn’t pick artificially attractive via manufactured scarcity.
I’m sure it all maths out to “marginally better profits” for the people engaging in these tactics even when factoring negative press, consumer backlash or people plain not falling into the trap - else they wouldn’t do it. But then so does marketing tobacco to teenagers, you know ?
I am of two Minds about it. On the One hand I think it is a major load of bullshit and I want to boycott the 6 months on principle. On the other hand I think is a major loaf of bullshit, but I will probably bend over and take it up the tailpipe to start playing it by October.
Epic haven’t developed or published the game at all, they’ve simply bought the rights to sell it exclusively for a period.
I don’t really like it. There’s now a few of these exclusivity deals on Epic. Metro: Exodus was heavily advertised on Steam before being pulled from sale on that platform due to the exclusivity deal.
This is a bit of a hijack though, maybe I’ll start another thread on it.
I don’t have any issue with timed exclusivity. While it’s finally beginning to wane due to a large (oh so large) number of issues Valve has had in the past few years, Steam still has a near-monopoly as a PC games distribution platform. Gog is the only real competitor and they run a tight curation ship and have a much thinner selection of games, for better or worse. Origin only really exists as a storefront exclusively for EA games, as far as most people are concerned, and Uplay… who uses Uplay? All the other sites are key resellers that generally distribute Steam keys (still tying you to that platform). Humble also provides the option to get Steam keys for almost all games it distributes. Increasing competition keeps Valve from doing whatever they want with Steam which would almost certainly not be consumer friendly at all.
What I do take issue with is the fact that the Epic Store is literal spyware that datamines a bunch of usage data from your Steam installation it shouldn’t even be able to have access to, and doesn’t even deign to tell you about it.
Oh, I forgot about the Discord game store which… it’s not as lol as Uplay but it barely counts. It’s pulled the same timed exclusivity deals as the Epic store but without being, y’know, literal spyware and more focused towards indies. Itch.io is also exclusively an indie distribution, and most non-free Hobby projects that are distributed on Itch are co-distributed on Steam anyway.
Either way, Steam is still basically the PC storefront, the main exceptions tend to either co-list their games on Steam, distribute Steam keys, or only exist for one small corner of the market (EA games, Activision-Blizzard games, whatever).
But so what? What Steam doesn’t have is a monopoly on the sales level due, in large part, to its willingness to give publishers free retail keys and thus compete against itself.
Ars Technica ran a piece today about how Valve doesn’t really get 30% of game sales because they generate so many retail keys for publishers. That’s far more meaningful to me as a consumer than the actual hosting service. Besides which, Epic’s store is hot garbage and their store/client lacks basic features that Steam had a decade ago.
Already covered in a previous post, and it’s neither here nor there.
None of this is registering as other than “Wah, I can’t get the game I want on from that platform I want.”
There’s not a single reasonable complaint about this setup. Every. Single. Product. Is marketed by somebody. Entities who have nothing to do with the creation of products or services regularly buy the rights to that product or service. Many products are available exclusively at one source.
Why video gamers think that they need to be pandered to and have any one particular game released in the manner of their choosing is beyond me.
Triple down on entitlement.
Apparently the Epic Store started having sales they didn’t tell the developers about, so B3 is not available for pre-order anymore, at least for a while.