Steam AAA Bleed Continues: Anno 1800 to be UPlay and Epic Games Store Exclusive

[moproblems99]

Steam didn't start a mod community. Steam didn't start voice chat. Steam didn't bring new things to the table that weren't there at the time. All it did was absorb that demand into its own service.

Gamespy. 'Nuff said. The only thing Steam brought to popularity was a place to buy games. Everything else had already been done. Kinda like the iPhone. It just brought everything together.

 

[Vayra86]

Gamespy. 'Nuff said.

HAH indeed holy shit

 

[moproblems99]

Ah well, not going to get angry about it, just figure if a game I want to play is released in a store I buy games, I'll be happy to buy it and if not, I'll play it "somewhere else".

So if Chevy decided to only sell Corvettes at a particular dealership (not where you buy cars), would you just steal one?

HAH indeed holy shit

Sorry for the ninja edit by the way.

 

[oxidized]

OK, I'll connect the dots for you.

Steam didn't start a mod community. Steam didn't start voice chat. Steam didn't bring new things to the table that weren't there at the time. All it did was absorb that demand into its own service. And it did that only YEARS AFTER release, while these services that I linked have all been there since early 2000's, which really was the moment they became feasible and usable for gaming.

The only real, new thing Steam did, was digital distribution of games. Consolidating gamers in one place because, simply enough, there was no alternative with the same reach.

Fast forward to 2018. EGS comes out with a bare storefront and no features. I invite you to put that next to the first year of Steam. Or its first three, even. Steam took its sweet (Valve!) time implementing the very same features you now call EGS inferior for. Not exactly fair, is it. Especially not because the majority of those features are on the roadmap for next year.

On top of that the services I named outside of Steam, still exist, and they actually do a better job at that than Steam does because they transcend the limitations of the Steam community, are not tied to a publisher or even to Valve. This makes them useful for ALL game releases and not just those on Steam. Now, more dots to connect: Because more releases happen outside of Steam, the relevance of that community is also starting to erode. It only needs some time and more and more people will realize that the old consolidation doesn't work anymore. People flock over to all sorts of places now. No point keeping Steam as the central place when you're spending most of your time elsewhere.

Capiche?

Steam never meant to start any mod community or voice chat, those are feature that came just slightly later, what it started is the whole launcher and videogames platform. You're trying to climb this mirror as much as you can. Gamespy is a totally different thing.

Also capiche isn't italian, it doesn't exist, if you're trying to be the funny guy, at least double check before.

 

[Vayra86]

Steam never meant to start any mod community or voice chat, those are feature that came just slightly later, what it started is the whole launcher and videogames platform. You're trying to climb this mirror as much as you can. Gamespy is a totally different thing.

Also capiche isn't italian, it doesn't exist, if you're trying to be the funny guy, at least double check before.

Riiiiight. To that all I can say is

 

[Deleted member 177333]

So if Chevy decided to only sell Corvettes at a particular dealership (not where you buy cars), would you just steal one?

Kind of a silly, irrelevant question. Chevy's not dumb enough to make a decision like that - they give lots of options so there's no need to worry about not having availability on storefronts. Ordered my first one and picked it up at the Corvette Museum, and the 2nd (current) one I shopped around on Autotrader until I found one I was interested in about an hour away from my house - called them up made an offer, they accepted it and I went out and bought it. It's nice when companies give their clientele lots of purchasing options. Customers are happy and keep giving them money. Neat how that works, and not really all that complicated.

If they all of a sudden decided to only sell them in say, California (I'm in Ohio), I'd probably just buy 1-year lightly used one or maybe it would give me the final push to buy my first Ferrari.

 

[oxidized]

Riiiiight. To that all I can say is

What? The mirror broke? Or you're just too tired to keep climbing?

 

[Deleted member 177333]

Not everyone. Everyone has different standards and principles though.

+1

Some folks talk a good game but cave when push comes to shove. Some mean exactly what they say. I'm thankful to be in the latter group.

 

[moproblems99]

Kind of a silly, irrelevant question.

No it isn't. A goods/services provider happens to not sell something you want where you want it so you decide to get it 'somewhere else'. How is that irrelevant? The point is that people seem to think software is supposed to be available at their terms and if it is not, then they pirate it. However, these same people seem to have 'morals' about hard goods like refrigerators or cars.

 

[Vayra86]

What? The mirror broke? Or you're just too tired to keep climbing?

Yep that is what it says in Italian. Soldier on!

 

[oxidized]

Yep that is what it says in Italian. Soldier on!

Yeah i thought so...

 

[bug]

No it isn't. A goods/services provider happens to not sell something you want where you want it so you decide to get it 'somewhere else'. How is that irrelevant? The point is that people seem to think software is supposed to be available at their terms and if it is not, then they pirate it. However, these same people seem to have 'morals' about hard goods like refrigerators or cars.

Yes, but in the case of physical goods, there's the actual problem of hauling them around. Digital goods don't need that and can be replicated at zero cost. That's why people expect availability for the latter, but not the former.

 

[wrathchild_67]

To the guy claiming that the quantity of Metacritic user reviews is a completely accurate metric for gauging success of a paid game, especially compared to user reviews of a free game, you fail to account for inorganic reviews. Every popular review medium is being gamed. This problem is so bad that there are websites that exist only to determine if user reviews for products are legitimate. I can't say for certain that a campaign to generate fake positive user reviews for Metro occurred, but it has happened with other AAA games. And my whole argument here is not that the game is bad and was propped up with false positive reviews, I'm arguing that looking strictly at the quantity of positive reviews in the age of astroturfed reviewing can't be used to determine popularity. As far as I know, there is no equivalent to FakeSpot for Metacritic user reviews. There is no quick way to determine the quality of those user reviews without reading all of them manually, and even then a human may not make the same conclusion based on language and content of the review that a site like FakeSpot would.

Also you're assuming that users of a free game, Apex Legends, would have the same motivations to post a review as those who paid for a game. In the case of Apex Legends, a user that has sunk $0 into the game doesn't have to feel justified in their purchase and let everyone know about it via an online review because there was no purchase to justify. Food for thought.

 

[Deleted member 177333]

No it isn't. A goods/services provider happens to not sell something you want where you want it so you decide to get it 'somewhere else'. How is that irrelevant? The point is that people seem to think software is supposed to be available at their terms and if it is not, then they pirate it. However, these same people seem to have 'morals' about hard goods like refrigerators or cars.

It's irrelevant for a couple of reasons:

1.) I didn't say I would "get it" "somewhere else". I said I would "play it" "somewhere else". Had I said I was going to steal it straight up, then your comment would have made more sense, but I didn't, you just made an assumption. I was intentionally vague as there is more than one way to play a game you don't want to reward a publisher for financially (I'm sure you've had friends at some point your life and if you're an adult, you may have to housesit for them occasionally, that is another common way to play games without paying for them if you have friends who have access to many different games) as well as others - some people simply share accounts and games when they want to try things out and decide if a game is worth a personal purchase. That's why I was vague about it as there are myriad of ways to play games.

2.) Comparing a $70k item to a $60 item and asking if someone would apply the same decision making process in terms of how to acquire it is, like I said, silly and irrelevant. You've also got the digital versus tangible difference which completely changes the rules of what you're implying, and that, as a result, will change the decision making process for people. It's a helluva lot more difficult, and carries much stiffer penalties to steal say, a jug of milk from the grocery store, and downloading software illegally through a masked VPN. One has a high risk of getting caught and carrying legal ramifications with the former, while the latter is the complete opposite. And in my opinion that's simply one more reason software publishers and developers should be mindful of how they treat their customers. They sell a product that isn't difficult at all to acquire by "other means", so it's in their best interest to be as consumer friendly as possible. This is why companies like CD Projekt Red are so beloved - they try to be as consumer friendly as possible to the point people in general WANT to buy their games.

IMO it's simply an anti consumer practice to put up exclusivity walls like some developers / publishers have been doing. I saw someone make a funny, yet applicable comment on another site a few weeks back that was meant toward developers doing exclusivity deals with the security challenged Epic Games Store, and the comment was something along the lines of "when you do business in a dark alley, don't be surprised when you get robbed" and that is very relevant to what some of these publishers are doing, intentionally pissing off their customer base by attempting to strong arm them into exclusivity deals at certain stores, especially ones with security issues like EGS.

What they might consider doing is selling on Steam for a higher price. Many folks would still buy the game there and everybody would be happy. Last thing you should ever do from the angle of a company that sells goods / services is try to intentionally limit the choices of your customers. It's just bad for business.

 

[Vayra86]

To the guy claiming that the quantity of Metacritic user reviews is a completely accurate metric for gauging success of a paid game, especially compared to user reviews of a free game, you fail to account for inorganic reviews. Every popular review medium is being gamed. This problem is so bad that there are websites that exist only to determine if user reviews for products are legitimate. I can't say for certain that a campaign to generate fake positive user reviews for Metro occurred, but it has happened with other AAA games. And my whole argument here is not that the game is bad and was propped up with false positive reviews, I'm arguing that looking strictly at the quantity of positive reviews in the age of astroturfed reviewing can't be used to determine popularity. As far as I know, there is no equivalent to FakeSpot for Metacritic user reviews. There is no quick way to determine the quality of those user reviews without reading all of them manually, and even then a human may not make the same conclusion based on language and content of the review that a site like FakeSpot would.

Also you're assuming that users of a free game, Apex Legends, would have the same motivations to post a review as those who paid for a game. In the case of Apex Legends, a user that has sunk $0 into the game doesn't have to feel justified in their purchase and let everyone know about it via an online review because there was no purchase to justify. Food for thought.

Great points and I see those as well. But there is still going to be a bottom line with regards to simple 'big data' principles. The Apex comparison has its own problem indeed, but at the same time, it also has noticeable lower review count and it makes sense, you don't review a free game because who cares, just go play it. But when you put that number next to for example Battlefields or CoDs it becomes a lot harder to maintain the 'its all fake' idea. Note that I ONLY look at the review count not the content or even the overall scores. And I said, its an indicator that is likely pointing at decent sales, more so than a boycot. It makes no sense at all to have the same amount of metacritic reviews while nobody bought it, or less people bought it compared to Metro LL (and especially not, if its fake and meant to drive sales, with mediocre scores). And even if part of the Metro Exodus number is fake, its still a pretty awkward similarity I'd say - a similarity I would personally chalk up towards the idea that we are looking at a very same slice of the fanbase that is ready to write a review for all Metro games. That is again an indicator the game sold fine.

On the other hand, we haven't seen ANY indicators that the game didn't. That is just a gut feeling based on a very vocal minority...of which remains to be seen whether they've put their money where there mouth was.

 

[moproblems99]

I didn't say I would "get it" "somewhere else". I said I would "play it" "somewhere else"

I was intentionally vague as there is more than one way to play

One would assume when they quote 'somewhere else' that they are meaning pirating. Or else, they would have simply said: I'll play it at a friends house. In either case, I'll take the blame for assuming.

You've also got the digital versus tangible difference which completely changes the rules of what you're implying, and that, as a result, will change the decision making process for people. One has a high risk of getting caught and carrying legal ramifications with the former, while the latter is the complete opposite.

So basically, as I surmised, its about the whole 'getting caught' thing. It's not bad if you don't get caught. And no, it doesn't change the rules. The act of acquiring without permission is the same. Only the consequences change.

IMO it's simply an anti consumer practice to put up exclusivity walls like some developers / publishers have been doing.

What they might consider doing is selling on Steam for a higher price. Many folks would still buy the game there and everybody would be happy. Last thing you should ever do from the angle of a company that sells goods / services is try to intentionally limit the choices of your customers. It's just bad for business.

I don't disagree with you about the poor decision to go exclusive but the publishers must be pretty sure the money they are making from Epic's payout and resulting sales is going to equal or exceed what they would get from Steam or they wouldn't get it. What I don't understand is why people think it is ok to 'get it somwhere else' just because it isn't on Steam. Whether or not those are your intentions, I don't really care.

 

[kastriot]

Can anyone tell me about what this thread was?

 

[vega22]

Friend list, community and reviews are all thing that matter to developers too, because they'll only increase the interest people has on that game, hence buying the game, because of its "social" features, cloud for saving progress on a game is also another important thing. "Worst platform is an opinion mostly pushed forward by flaming reddit posts with extensive lists of feature gaps" I sincerely hope you're joking, you understand this makes no sense right? That list is legit and has a clear point, objective point, not subjective, those are facts, and lacking those feature make EGS worse than steam, and the worst in general, since the other smaller launchers have more feature than that. Refund? Wanna talk about it? Mods? Doesn't matter that flaming t**d of Metro doesn't have mods, many games on PC do, and that's a PC platform we're talking about. NONE and i repeat NONE of those features listed are subjectively useful, they're all OBJECTIVE USEFUL, hence subjective useless. What do you mean with "steady trend of people getting their content elsewhere"? Steam does offer more to both devs and users, which automatically means offering more to devs again. My use of devs in this discussion isn't appropriate, i know, but it's to make it understand better what i'm trying to say.



Steam doesn't offer their engine, that's for use if you want, it's not a feature they offer with their platform, what's your point?

They offer much more Grants to indies than epic, what are you talking about. Free content? Who cares about that, besides steam offers that too. Again with the interaction of unreal engine and unity engine, what you're saying makes no sense at all, engine are a different, separate thing, that's not a feature EGS offers, per sé, nor Valve.

You talk about Devs, admit you're using the term wrong then try to counter points that really matter to Devs....

You might want to stop digging as your lack of knowledge and personal bias is shining through your very thin argument.

For Devs, the people gamers should be supporting, not the marketplace, things I have mentioned here are what counts as it makes it easier to make the games. Then you add their more generous cut at the checkout and you end up with all the indy Devs canning years of work on source engine projects and running to epic with open arms.

@kastriot
Epic getting more timed exclusives so steam fanbois are lighting the pitchforks...

 

[rtwjunkie]

and that popularity is to expect since they invested most of their budget on marketing to reach as much people as possible.

Source for the use of most of their budget on marketing instead of game production?

 

[moproblems99]

Yes, but in the case of physical goods, there's the actual problem of hauling them around. Digital goods don't need that and can be replicated at zero cost. That's why people expect availability for the latter, but not the former.

I don't understand what you were going for here.

 

[Deleted member 177333]

One would assume when they quote 'somewhere else' that they are meaning pirating. Or else, they would have simply said: I'll play it at a friends house. In either case, I'll take the blame for assuming.



So basically, as I surmised, its about the whole 'getting caught' thing. It's not bad if you don't get caught. And no, it doesn't change the rules. The act of acquiring without permission is the same. Only the consequences change.



I don't disagree with you about the poor decision to go exclusive but the publishers must be pretty sure the money they are making from Epic's payout and resulting sales is going to equal or exceed what they would get from Steam or they wouldn't get it. What I don't understand is why people think it is ok to 'get it somwhere else' just because it isn't on Steam. Whether or not those are your intentions, I don't really care.

No worries. I totally support your right to disagree with me.

And absolutely - on the topic of pirating / stealing just in general, of course "risk" is going to be at the top of the consideration list. And let's be real - pirating games is pretty darn simple, and that's why I feel like publishers really ought to consider carefully how they treat their customers. But also on the flipside, you're absolutely right that they have likely done the math and figured "even if we piss a bunch of people off and they steal our $hit, the money EGS gave us plus the people who will buy anyway will more than offset it" - the unknown variable is will people be angry with that developer / publisher down the road? Some will probably, and some may forget or just not care.

On your question about why gamers figure it's ok - I would imagine it's because they feel they're being done dirty by the publisher and figure they'll do the publisher dirty in return. I think the "right or wrong" angle of it doesn't really come into the equation. I personally feel like this is kind of a gray zone - I could cite some governmental / historical situations where they were officially "legal" but morally / ethically wrong by most observers and I think that's kind of what we have with these types of situations - what these publishers are doing is legal - there's nothing unlawful about it, but I think many consumers view it as wrong and as a result feel like they'll just stick it to the man in a "you tried to pooch me, so I'm gonna pooch you" sorta way. Right or wrong I think that's probably the view of most and I don't disagree with it.

For me personally, I'll just continue to advocate for companies selling the product on many digital storefronts and won't purchase games if they aren't sold at a store I do business with. I'm trying not to get as irritated with these types of announcements as the way I look at it, I'm going to play any game I want regardless, whether it's at a friend's house, via account sharing or via some other method - literally the only variable on the table is whether the developer gets my money. And I'm happy to give it if they deserve and practice consumer-friendly behaviors. Very much looking forward to buying Cyberpunk 2077 (if it ever comes out) on Steam.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Had to be done...

 

[moproblems99]

No worries. I totally support your right to disagree with me.

We are honestly only disagreeing about semantics at the most part. Additionally, I am a software engineer which this topic tends to irritate me more than the average person. Life is not black or white and always has various shades of grey.

However, two wrongs don't a right and the better person knows which path to take. If they are fine taking the 'grey' path, that is not for me to judge as ultimately, they only need to answer to themselves when they look in the mirror.

 

[vega22]

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2019-...-will-launch-as-an-epic-games-store-exclusive

I can't wait to see the hate they get on steam from their "fans" xD

 

[Deleted member 177333]

We are honestly only disagreeing about semantics at the most part. Additionally, I am a software engineer which this topic tends to irritate me more than the average person. Life is not black or white and always has various shades of grey.

However, two wrongs don't a right and the better person knows which path to take. If they are fine taking the 'grey' path, that is not for me to judge as ultimately, they only need to answer to themselves when they look in the mirror.

Sometimes the developers do get caught in the middle and I honestly feel bad for them. The Metro Exodus situation seems like that - I believe that EGS exclusivity decision was made by the publisher and not the developers, so I felt quite bad for the game developers in that situation and the consumers. Both groups were made victims by bad publishing choices. So I do totally understand any heightened emotions you feel with that being your profession. Best of luck.