So, even with the massive success of Fortnite - which is orders of magnitude bigger than Half-Life 2 ever was, they STILL can't get enough to people to actually use the Epic store.
That truly speaks to just how much gamers DO NOT WANT multiple competing Steam-clones.
I want competing Steam-clones. I want them to compete in a fair marketplace where they follow the rules.
Epic isn't doing that. In fact, just like China, they're trying to buy out the competition and force licenses to move over to their store. They buy exclusivity/timed exclusivity deals to rob the Steam and other stores of sales.
Epic is like the epitome of "crony capitalism" as a corporation. Everything they do is legal, but it's incredibly underhanded and disingenuous, and it makes 100% sense considering Tencent has a huge minority stake in the company. It is the same kind of shit tactics the CCP uses.
I have options to play other games without using EGS. It's not like electronics where no matter how much I try to buy Western/US-made goods I am still having some of that money funneled to China because of the raw materials required.
As long as Steam remains a viable option, which it is, I will continue playing on it and I also send messages to developers that take that Chinese bag of money from Epic for exclusivity deals to express my anger and my intent to boycott their product if they do it with future games.
Epic isn't doing that. In fact, just like China, they're trying to buy out the competition and force licenses to move over to their store. They buy exclusivity/timed exclusivity deals to rob the Steam and other stores of sales.
Really, this is the biggest issue for me. I'd love to see more competitors (and, in fact, will preferentially purchase most things on GoG over steam, simply because you can get the backup files for them). But, when Epic started doing the "buy out the devs to lock the game to just Epic for a year" - especially when nearly all of the games (if not all) they did that on had said they were doing a Steam release before Epic came along with a Scrooge McDuck bag - then it's time to nope out.
I'd consider them a competent Steam Clone if they weren't so far behind with the basic requirements for a digital storefront and gaming platform. As it stands, they're a Frankenstein abomination competing with a supermodel that has toe-thumbs and hobbit feet. The monster may be stronger, but the supermodel does what it's supposed to, and you can generally ignore the bad parts that exist most of the time. EGS just has nothing going for it.
Yep, that's the summary!
Plus, you get the epic shills saying that Valve has exclusives, like Half-life 2, missing the point that HL2 is a Valve product.
They clearly underestimated how many gamers would 1) open the store exactly once per week just to grab free games 2) wait out timed exclusives for 12+ months 3) refuse to spend a dime on principle.
I grabbed a few free games, but only the browser, and not crappy EGS app. Before I knew that, I would ignore the free games. hahaha I refuse to install that crap.
Thankfullyu, even the community that uses that crap is tired of it, and has released an open source launcher. https://github.com/derrod/legendary
Imagine spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a digital storefront that just up and vanishes. What then? Does Epic have any contingency for heavily invested customers? Do they dare leave internet DRM intact on games that people literally cannot verify after a certain date? Do those people just pirate everything they've lost?
Nah, they have a couple cash cows. Fortnite and don't forget they recently bought Rocket League, which has gone F2p and is turning into a TF2-esque hat simulator.
Those two markets alone will probably make them profitable.
What WILL kill EGS though, is if Fortnite gets replaced by some other F2P shitgame. Which will most likely happen. When that source of money dries up the EGS is done for.
Probably... I used it to download Batman Arkham Knight DLC, and transfered it to my steam copy :P -- That's as far as I went to downloading or using one of their free games.
That’s kind of their plan. Amazon pissed away money forever to gain market share with lower prices and faster delivery. They have either ran competitors out of business or stolen enough customers before they were ever in the black. Epic losing money the first few years on their store was expected by them and their profits from fortnight and ue4 licenses will keep them afloat.
So, even with the massive success of Fortnite - which is orders of magnitude bigger than Half-Life 2 ever was, they STILL can't get enough to people to actually use the Epic store.
That truly speaks to just how much gamers DO NOT WANT multiple competing Steam-clones.
I want competing Steam-clones. I want them to compete in a fair marketplace where they follow the rules.
Epic isn't doing that. In fact, just like China, they're trying to buy out the competition and force licenses to move over to their store. They buy exclusivity/timed exclusivity deals to rob the Steam and other stores of sales.
Epic is like the epitome of "crony capitalism" as a corporation. Everything they do is legal, but it's incredibly underhanded and disingenuous, and it makes 100% sense considering Tencent has a huge minority stake in the company. It is the same kind of shit tactics the CCP uses.
I have options to play other games without using EGS. It's not like electronics where no matter how much I try to buy Western/US-made goods I am still having some of that money funneled to China because of the raw materials required.
As long as Steam remains a viable option, which it is, I will continue playing on it and I also send messages to developers that take that Chinese bag of money from Epic for exclusivity deals to express my anger and my intent to boycott their product if they do it with future games.
Really, this is the biggest issue for me. I'd love to see more competitors (and, in fact, will preferentially purchase most things on GoG over steam, simply because you can get the backup files for them). But, when Epic started doing the "buy out the devs to lock the game to just Epic for a year" - especially when nearly all of the games (if not all) they did that on had said they were doing a Steam release before Epic came along with a Scrooge McDuck bag - then it's time to nope out.
I'd consider them a competent Steam Clone if they weren't so far behind with the basic requirements for a digital storefront and gaming platform. As it stands, they're a Frankenstein abomination competing with a supermodel that has toe-thumbs and hobbit feet. The monster may be stronger, but the supermodel does what it's supposed to, and you can generally ignore the bad parts that exist most of the time. EGS just has nothing going for it.
Yep, that's the summary! Plus, you get the epic shills saying that Valve has exclusives, like Half-life 2, missing the point that HL2 is a Valve product.
I mean, the main thing for me is Tencent has a huge minority stake (something like 40%?) in them. Which means they have a CCP arm of their company.
Fuck them and fuck China.
They clearly underestimated how many gamers would 1) open the store exactly once per week just to grab free games 2) wait out timed exclusives for 12+ months 3) refuse to spend a dime on principle.
I grabbed a few free games, but only the browser, and not crappy EGS app. Before I knew that, I would ignore the free games. hahaha I refuse to install that crap.
Thankfullyu, even the community that uses that crap is tired of it, and has released an open source launcher. https://github.com/derrod/legendary
It's going to go under before I play a single of one my free games, isn't it?
Imagine spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a digital storefront that just up and vanishes. What then? Does Epic have any contingency for heavily invested customers? Do they dare leave internet DRM intact on games that people literally cannot verify after a certain date? Do those people just pirate everything they've lost?
Nah, they have a couple cash cows. Fortnite and don't forget they recently bought Rocket League, which has gone F2p and is turning into a TF2-esque hat simulator.
Those two markets alone will probably make them profitable.
What WILL kill EGS though, is if Fortnite gets replaced by some other F2P shitgame. Which will most likely happen. When that source of money dries up the EGS is done for.
Probably... I used it to download Batman Arkham Knight DLC, and transfered it to my steam copy :P -- That's as far as I went to downloading or using one of their free games.
That’s kind of their plan. Amazon pissed away money forever to gain market share with lower prices and faster delivery. They have either ran competitors out of business or stolen enough customers before they were ever in the black. Epic losing money the first few years on their store was expected by them and their profits from fortnight and ue4 licenses will keep them afloat.