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 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, the only thing really exclusive on Steam right now, IIRC, is the "console" and controller they themselves created to work with Steam. And even that is probably not. If a dev who has released on Steam wants to release on GoG or somewhere else, Valve never objects to it.

Don't get me wrong. I could gak all over Valve for their ineptitude in trying to solve problems due to their trying to focus on algorithms to solve them instead of using any sort of sense. They're not saints or angels by any means. But at least when you talk about how bad Valve is, talk about things that are actually true.

Steam also takes criticism of their store somewhat to heart.
Mind you curation is Still utter Gak, but tools and structure are there. And their algorithms are just wierd.
I also never had issue with custommer Service of steam.
That's more then what i can say about EA and origin or Blizzard.

EA Origin's customer service hung up on me twice. Blizzard didn't hang up on me, but they also didn't much help with my problem. I had to solve it myself.

I've never needed to contact Steam's customer service for any reason. And that's the best kind of customer service there is in my book

 LordofHats wrote:
EA Origin's customer service hung up on me twice. Blizzard didn't hang up on me, but they also didn't much help with my problem. I had to solve it myself.

I've never needed to contact Steam's customer service for any reason. And that's the best kind of customer service there is in my book

Origin is absolute gak, especially when you want help.

 Overread wrote:

I don't think AAA games are being "scum" for going after money any more than indie games or any other developer - going after the money is kinda the whole point of running companies and this is pretty easy money to go after. I agree with regard to the predatory nature of Epic poaching games that already promised and even took pre-order money for other distribution networks. I think the drama there would be far less if Epic presented as a capable, feature rich store front and had a good track record of consumer support. IF GOG started getting predatory people would complain, but in the end they'd likely not complain half as much.

"Companies exist to make money" is not a blanket justification for every possible method of making money. For the sake of making the point take it to an absurd extreme; third world child labour can be a very efficient way of increasing profits, but few people would try to argue any company taking advantage of it would be justified "because moneymaking".

Also lets not forget that thus far games are actually selling rather well on Epic; its showing that the greater majority of complaints are "hot air" from a minority in the market. There ARE serious and valid concerns, but at present its a bit like paid lootboxes. It's bad for the health of the market, but financially it IS working.

Lootboxes are an odd point of comparison if the argument is that Epic exclusivity sells games, given the entire ingame gambling system is predicated on exploiting a relatively small segment of the playerbase with more money than sense/poor impulse control/outright addiction issues. We have no way of knowing whether games that sell well on Epic could have sold even better had they not been exclusive, or how large that difference might be, so the most you can say from the perspective of the game makers' is that financially it's not failing. Whether it ends up working for Epic depends on the eventual outcome - given their reduced cut, income guarantees, and outright lump-sum bungs I very much doubt many of the games on the Epic Store are turning a huge profit for Epic themselves, so for it to qualify as a success for them the overall strategy has to pay off, and we won't know if that's the case until either Steam collapses and the EGS becomes the new default, or Epic chooses to end their bribery scheme and the EGS maintains a significant userbase who choose to shop there.

 Melissia wrote:
Don't get me wrong. I could gak all over Valve for their ineptitude in trying to solve problems due to their trying to focus on algorithms to solve them instead of using any sort of sense. They're not saints or angels by any means. But at least when you talk about how bad Valve is, talk about things that are actually true.

Their faults come from a certain level of incompetence alongside a certain level of just not giving a gak. They're lazy.

Epic is devious and underhanded. That makes them far worse.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Don't get me wrong. I could gak all over Valve for their ineptitude in trying to solve problems due to their trying to focus on algorithms to solve them instead of using any sort of sense. They're not saints or angels by any means. But at least when you talk about how bad Valve is, talk about things that are actually true.

Their faults come from a certain level of incompetence alongside a certain level of just not giving a gak. They're lazy.

Epic is devious and underhanded. That makes them far worse.

No wonder borderlands CEO likes them

Assuming this is correect and not bs-- Valve/Steam changes its distribution agreement. tl;dr: Valve/Steam will likely say breach of contract if a company hypes a game as to be released on Steam, and then signs an exclusivity agreement with epic afterwards.

Perhaps the threat of a lawsuit will get dev teams to stop being shady about this stuff.

 Melissia wrote:



Assuming this is correect and not bs-- Valve/Steam changes its distribution agreement. tl;dr: Valve/Steam will likely say breach of contract if a company hypes a game as to be released on Steam, and then signs an exclusivity agreement with epic afterwards.

Perhaps the threat of a lawsuit will get dev teams to stop being shady about this stuff.

Well so long they still allow GoG and other platforms that seems ok, i guess.

They haven't had an issue with competing retail platforms in the past, so I don't expect them to going forward. I suspect thst Steam's biggest complaint is in having themselves used as an advertising platform for games that are ultimately not available on Steam.

Or in other words, don't spend a month using Valve's platform to generate buzz for your game if you're not going to sell the game on Steam. It also neatly works to undercut Epic, as Epic can't wait to see what's getting good pre-release PR on Steam before extending an exclusivity deal.

I wish Steam would get more non-game programs for their library. I would love to use Steam for my Anti-virus software, my mal-ware suite, or my system optimization stuff. Steam would be awesome as a one stop shop.

In fairness Steam hasn't really had any serious competition. Most of the companies that split away like Microsoft were more concerned with their own titles than building a huge library. They grew steadily over time and established themselves. GOG did the same, a steady growth. They either didn't direct compete to start with or were very small.

Epic is going at it very differently with a VERY aggressive method of poaching top titles from upcoming games on Steam and leaching them off with a powerful golden hand. Now securing exclusives makes sense, but poaching like Epic is doing isn't consumer nor competition friendly. In addition Epic is clearly out to not just take a slice but a BIG slice of the pie; its the only way I can see them justifying taking such a big market undercutting percentage on sales and also paying out such big exclusivity deal payments.

I'm still part convinced that in the long run we will see Epics percentage reduce and its golden handshake lose its power. That is unless they grow to dominate steam and the market. Even then they are taking a bitter percentage than the competition and in a huge way. That makes me wonderif all the competition are greedy or if there are logistical and support reasons for them needing a bigger slice of the pie. Things that perhaps Epic hasn't encountered as its not as big a company or because they are bankrolling other aspects with investment from other divisions to make it work.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I wish Steam would get more non-game programs for their library. I would love to use Steam for my Anti-virus software, my mal-ware suite, or my system optimization stuff. Steam would be awesome as a one stop shop.

They sort of did try but never got anywhere big with it. Likely because:

1) Many software firms would rather you signed up to their annual programs and own systems. Adobe already does all their software through their own subscription system and they've no reason to want to run it through steam and lose direct profits. I suspect many others are in the same position.

2) Again the messy interface of steams front page I think worked against them. Plus it still presents itself as a game site first and foremost; they don't make much noise or advetising about their other software.

I love the new Steam idea, of punishing Epic's poaching by lawsuit for breach of contract.

It seems a legit approach to me, as several of the crowdfunded games still advertise steam keys, since the crowding funding pages are locked after the campaign is over. Similarly the Outer Worlds trailer had the Steam logo on it in several places, and the exclusivity deal would have been in process at the time.

The epic exclusives wouldn't be nearly so noxious if they didn't involve a bait and switch

Voss wrote:
It seems a legit approach to me, as several of the crowdfunded games still advertise steam keys, since the crowding funding pages are locked after the campaign is over. Similarly the Outer Worlds trailer had the Steam logo on it in several places, and the exclusivity deal would have been in process at the time.

The epic exclusives wouldn't be nearly so noxious if they didn't involve a bait and switch

Indeed.
It would also mark the Epic deal takers propperly for what they are, oppurtunistic weasels not worthy or money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btw it seems that Boderlands has screwed with the Ratings?

where are you seeing the issue with Gearbox and ratings? I don't doubt it though, they have yet to get a story printed about them that wasn't "housewives of New Jersey" level pedantic drama.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
where are you seeing the issue with Gearbox and ratings? I don't doubt it though, they have yet to get a story printed about them that wasn't "housewives of New Jersey" level pedantic drama.

http://archive.li/leriy

Again, and I don't want to sound silly, but a twitter post about a company that is basically the bottom of the barrel as far as games journalism goes getting denied a copy of their game isn't proof. Especially since PC gamer got a copy and their review was "Meh".

Not defending 2k or Epic or Gearbox. But they have been getting a lot of flack for stuff that may not have been really that bad. It's the dogpile mentality of American internet culture I'm sorry to say.

Yeah plus even if reviews are not front and centre on Epic store there's loads of review sites out there now. Within a day you can easily harvest up a load of twitch, youtube and blog posts for a new game and there's enough people earning off it to launch review games - esp something high profile like BL3. Sure they might not get pre-release copies; but they can certainly bash out reviews darn fast.

It's not like it was 20 years ago when review copies were essential because you were writing a magazine and taht was the primary review spot so you had to have those review copies early.

Today a review copy is nice and launch sales are important; but you can still review games at launch pretty fast.

Also, apparently reviewers were sent old debug versions of Borderlands 3 to review.

Jim Sterling video:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also, apparently reviewers were sent old debug versions of Borderlands 3 to review.

Jim Sterling video:

THANK

GOD

FOR JIM

See this is why I avoid borderlands release info and just focus on enjoying the games for mindless shooting and crazy ;P

Hopefully the debug version isn't the only one where enemy AI was enabled this time...

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also, apparently reviewers were sent old debug versions of Borderlands 3 to review.

Jim Sterling video:

That's pretty normal. If anyone had a fully finished product 3 weeks in advance (when you arrange for the copies to be sent out), there wouldn't be a need for Day 1 patches. The retail copy you buy is often in a similar state these days.

It also protects, as Jim pointed out, critical complaints about bugs.

They should report on the bugs they find anyway. If you don't want a games journalist to report on bugs, you should probably not give them a buggy copy...

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Again, and I don't want to sound silly, but a twitter post about a company that is basically the bottom of the barrel as far as games journalism goes getting denied a copy of their game isn't proof. Especially since PC gamer got a copy and their review was "Meh".

Not defending 2k or Epic or Gearbox. But they have been getting a lot of flack for stuff that may not have been really that bad. It's the dogpile mentality of American internet culture I'm sorry to say.

PC gamer was offended by the jokes so they gave it a lower rating. If GB is near the bottom, PC Gamer is the bottom. Have we all forgotten the Dorito Pope incident?

 Togusa wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Again, and I don't want to sound silly, but a twitter post about a company that is basically the bottom of the barrel as far as games journalism goes getting denied a copy of their game isn't proof. Especially since PC gamer got a copy and their review was "Meh".

Not defending 2k or Epic or Gearbox. But they have been getting a lot of flack for stuff that may not have been really that bad. It's the dogpile mentality of American internet culture I'm sorry to say.

PC gamer was offended by the jokes so they gave it a lower rating. If GB is near the bottom, PC Gamer is the bottom. Have we all forgotten the Dorito Pope incident?

What? Dorito Pope incident?!

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Again, and I don't want to sound silly, but a twitter post about a company that is basically the bottom of the barrel as far as games journalism goes getting denied a copy of their game isn't proof. Especially since PC gamer got a copy and their review was "Meh".

Not defending 2k or Epic or Gearbox. But they have been getting a lot of flack for stuff that may not have been really that bad. It's the dogpile mentality of American internet culture I'm sorry to say.

PC gamer was offended by the jokes so they gave it a lower rating. If GB is near the bottom, PC Gamer is the bottom. Have we all forgotten the Dorito Pope incident?

What? Dorito Pope incident?!

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dorito-pope

Oh, ohhh.


That one.

Tbf that doesn't surprise me.

Well it would appear the UK are calling loot boxes gambling and are going to legislate as such hopefully. If that sticks and spreads I would imagine Epic are going to be throwing a lot less cash around parasites that they are.