Epic Games Store - Concerns (Launchers, Prices, DRM, Monopoly, Exclusives)

[Tom]

A lot of people were sharing their concerns about the Epic games store, discussing the latest news about the new store platform
(https://www.exclusivelygames.com/for...very-two-weeks)

Please share and discuss your thoughts or concerns on the matter in this thread.

_ _

[Matias]

My thoughts so far
I personally don't mind having a third launcher for my games so that is not an issue for me
i don't mind that they do not have reviews or ratings (would be nice but not a big deal for me)
Platform exclusivity sucks for users, Timed exclusives are the worst and some of these games were supposed to be released originally on steam so thats kinda annoying
i don't see Epic Games being transparent about their policies or anything at all

Did i make an Epic Games account ? yes and i also downloaded and tried their launcher (just because free games)
Did i like it ? Not really, it's fine i guess. For now it is what it seems, pretty empty and i would be pissed if some game i was excited about would be epic exclusive just because right now that platform doesn't have any other value than getting free games.

One weird thing is that my firewall doesn't like the Epic Games Launcher at all and automatically blocks some traffic. I don't know what but not anything functional i would assume . the launcher works normally even with this happening. So thats kinda sketchy , maybe it's normal but that hasn't happened to me ever before using tons of different launchers etc.

Could this still be a good thing ? i think so
Atleast steam has to up their game and we are prolly gonna see other platforms giving out more free games in 2019 aswell
This could be a very good year for pc gamers

[Dub-Z]

I agree, and that's why I said people should make it a priority ask.

[Nella_Bolt]

I'm not investing in yet another location to buy digital games.

[ryan_]

I agree that competition will likely strengthen both platforms to a degree, but I like the idea of having my games in one repository. I didn't like having to have Origin as a separate launcher for SWTOR and Mass Effect, and I expect exclusives will just require me to have both launchers for no reason, or pick one especially if, ugh, they start introducing subscriptions or other weird platform specific incentives.

If the competition results in Epic taking the good practices from Steam (i.e. forums, lack of censorship) and Steam upping developer revshare to compete, that's a good thing, but I can see how consumers could lose out if these platforms are competing for devs with dev terms to attract consumers instead of competing for consumers directly based on the merits of their platform.

[Tom]

STEAM, that's it - STEAM
sry, i had to xD

But yeah, there are reasons to not leave STEAM rather than reasons to leave.

[Matcam89]

Steam has been good to me, i have no reason to leave Steam, always glad with competition but i really don't want anymore launchers.

[Tom]

you have one of the most helpful signatures i've ever seen, sir

[ethansito]

My concern for Steam is that with a 88% rev split with devs, Epic Store will be able to line up at least some attractive exclusive titles. Right now Hades is available on the Epic Store and not Steam. It could be that indies overall flock to the Epic Store, and I suspect Epic will provide some sort of incentive to retain the best ones as exclusives. Which will be bad for me personally, I think, if Epic does end up being less of a free market with a greater emphasis on curation and censorship.

I don't mind Epic Games being a competitor to steam because competition is good for the consumers.

But yeah, I agree that Epic Games having exclusives would suck. I don't want to buy games from them.

[ryan_]

My concern for Steam is that with a 88% rev split with devs, Epic Store will be able to line up at least some attractive exclusive titles. Right now Hades is available on the Epic Store and not Steam. It could be that indies overall flock to the Epic Store, and I suspect Epic will provide some sort of incentive to retain the best ones as exclusives. Which will be bad for me personally, I think, if Epic does end up being less of a free market with a greater emphasis on curation and censorship.

[Badwords]

The main things Epic hasn't spoken about that is needed to win more people over.

1. Refunds and Gifts. If you find out you've bought crap on steam you can get your money back. Epic had horrible troubles handling their Fortnite refunds early on.
2. Bans and account access. You might lose access to multiplayer but you don't lose access to all the games you spend money on. This needs to be made clear with Epic.
3. Censorship. Steam put responsibility on the consumers choice instead of treating us as children. I don't need a stranger telling me what's a game and what isn't.

[Tom]

Did some searching and found this quote on Kotaku 🙄 (http://archive.is/rGtwl):





I would say reviews and ratings are social media-like. But I didn't read whole article, maybe I missed something.

Oof, i am staying with steam, steam reviews were revelations in terms of transparency for the store.
Red flag, right there. What's the point of this new store if they can't even bring more to the table than steam does.

[monnef]

Did some searching and found this quote on Kotaku 🙄 (http://archive.is/rGtwl):

That’s why we won’t have forums on Epic Games store and will start with a ticketing system, so gamers can message devs about their problems instead of review-bombing them

For instance, forums and other social media-like tools—a cornerstone of Steam—won’t be part of the package.

I would say reviews and ratings are social media-like. But I didn't read whole article, maybe I missed something.

[SolarGamer]

The biggest pro to Epic throwing their hat into the game store space is that Steam has more competition, and in order to compete Steam will have to get their act together. Steam has had a monopoly for a very long time, but there seems to be a lot of industry support pushing the Epic store, which is specious in itself, so Epic may become a legit rival in time. As for the store practices, I wouldn't jump headfirst into the Epic Store as a consumer or a dev. Epic is an unknown at this point, we don't know if they are going to start unfairly applying their TOS to ban users/devs/games they don't like, or other shady stuff. All we have to go on is how they have handed Fortnite, which is enough to give me a "wait and see" attitude.

[Wreckless Gamer]

I don't see Epic adding things like user reviews, ratings and forums because publishers, developers and games media hate the power it gives consumers to be louder than marketing narratives and special interests. Better keep asking for it and don't buy until you like what you see.

Consumer is king though (or should be). If enough people shout for it we might (eventually) get it. Most web stores allow rating of products by consumers, it's pretty standard these days.