The Epic Games Store And What To Expect

The epic store is trying to force its way in by using exclusives. Metro exodus is going to be an exclusive for epic store and that have already had a backlash. Didn't help that they only announced it 2 weeks before release. The Division 2 will also be an exclusive for it.

Right now the store is not very consumer friendly and the company isn't especially known for it either. Something to be worried about is that one of the companies behind epic is well known to sell personal information and perform some dubious business practices.

 

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Steam is still perfectly fine in my eyes, no need to even think of switching to another service.

 

You know, the Metro thing was disappointing for me, but not so much that I am closed off to the idea of getting it on Epic.

The Division 2 messaging going around online is silly to me though. Let's be honest, whenever you buy a modern Ubisoft game on Steam, you end up going through Uplay anyways- it's still the launcher. I haven't heard anything that suggests the Epic store will behave differently than Steam in that regard.

I've been pretty interested in Division 2, but I was already planning to buy it on Uplay if I picked it up.

I suppose the truth of it for me is that I can't see myself refusing to pick up a game I have been looking forward to because of the storefront it's on. Sure, I would prefer it to be offered through Steam, but I think many people, myself included have already proven their loyalty is more to the game than the platform.

I think about games like the later Mass Effect games or Dragon Age Inquisition. If you want to play them, you do it on Origin because you literally cannot get them elsewhere. It acts as both store and launcher. Ubisoft's approach is more like a nudge to convenience. They might let you buy Far Cry 5 or the newer Assassin's Creed game somewhere else, but you have to play it on Uplay anyways, so why not buy it there as well?

Should the Epic store act as an exclusive launcher capacity for big games I want to play, I just honestly can't see myself drawing a line in the sand. I don't feel as though the existing options are mutually exclusive.

 

I am actually seriously pissed off about developers advertising their games on steam's store page, then jumping to the Epic store with sometimes less than a week to launch. That's incredibly shitty, unethical behavior. You don't take advantage of someone's services (for almost free) for upwards of a year in some cases then split the minute you get a better deal.

Another note. Subnautica and Ashen players are still using the steam discussion forums for technical help for those games, because the Epic store offers basically no after-market support other than refunds.

Now as for future exclusives, don't know yet. I would like to see someone really challenge Valve, so maybe at some point I'll buy something there.

 

I've been picking up the free games, since, you know why not? No objection to Epic introducing some competition but the only thing that's convinced me to move away from Steam so far has been GoG's DRM-free games.

 

Another devs vs fans fight is starting up and it's about Metro Exodus.

Metro Exodus was announced in 2017 and eventually a steam page popped up. They used this to spread news and even allowed some preorder to get the game on steam. All of this changed about 5 days ago (which is about 2 weeks before the game releases) when they suddenly removed the game from steam and announced that it would be an exclusive for the Epic games store (People who preorderd it for steam would still be able to play it there). Alot of fans were upset with it and start threatening that they will boycott the game. Here is where the dev decides to fire back by threatening that if PC players don't buy the game then the next Metro (if there will be one) will not be released on PC.

I think we have some idea by now of what usually happens when the devs decide to threaten the gamers.

 

They are planning for a user review system but there is a catch to it, it's optional. The devs get to choose themselves if the review system will be available for their games or not. The reason for that is to counteract the issues of review bombing. Which isn't really an issue unless they screw up badly. What will most likely happen, is that most devs won't enable it and especially so if the result of the reviews are bad.

 

The whole threatening the customer base with, if you don’t buy the game we won’t make a PC version anymore. This is what stopped me from buying it. I’m not going to support idiocy such as that.!

 

Here is the apology taken from their Twitter.

 

honestly, if I can't buy the game outright (without having to partake of their idiotic knockoff system) then I agree that they're holding the game hostage. If it's their IP that's one thing, can hardly fault blizzard for selling blizzard games on the blizzard game hub, but if it's not your own IP then you're walking an excruciatingly fine line. The only way I can see this being done and not feeling like it's just another CBS Prime access (fuck you CBS and your decision to paywall Star Trek) is to make it an exclusive...temporarily. I'd be okay with that, That's really more in line with just getting a prerelease copy, if you want it sooner than anyone else, jump through the hoops, if not, wait your turn

 

Yes, from what I have heard, they have a 1 year exclusivity deal.

While exclusivity deals suck, the big problem was with how late they announced it. Announcing it 2 or 3 weeks before release is not OK. If they had announced it 4 months ago it would never have blown up to be so big as it did. People would still have been upset just nowhere near what they became now.

 

sorry, one year is too long for exclusive rights to a video games distribution. ninety days is pushing the very outmost of what might be considered acceptable and even that is putting your gascan inside your fireplace. If I was doing it most I'd even consider would be one month. Two week should be more than enough to get the vast majority of people who're going to 'try it to play it sooner' and putting it significantly longer than that you have a much higher chance of losing quite a few of the people who would just shrug and try it, because now they think you're assholes and they'd rather not have anything to do with you.

 

1 year? That's basically putting it into wait till it's on sale to buy territory.

 

Ugh . Pheonix Point just signed a 1 year exclusive with epic games. If you backed the first year of DLC is free. You only need epic to download the game but not to play it. But I don't want to have to get another client. Wonder if I could download epic and the game and uninstall epic. Or get a refund and wait a year.

 

While I have always been disappointed with the Epic store for going the way of exclusives. I have now lost all respect for them.

I was worried when I saw that Epic Games was owned 40% (I think this is correct) by Tencent. Tencent have a reputation of selling their users personal information. However I never expected them to do this.



Games bought on the Epic games store are launched through the Epic games launcher. A Reddit user have taken a look at what data the client takes. Specifically seen is that the program searches for an installation of Steam and if that exist it copies a file from it that contains some things like game time and friendlist. The information is copied and saved locally without asking for permission.

Valve have reacted to it, saying that the information is private and not meant to be used by a third party and that they are taking a closer look at what information it's taking.


Epic games have also responded after this that they are updating it. After the update it will only take the friendlist from the file when Steam friends are imported over.

Here is the Reddit post about it,
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/b0rxdq/epic_game_store_spyware_tracking_and_you/