Avus wrote on Jul 6, 2020, 12:07:
The only game i will pay full price at launch in this year will by Cyberpunk 2077. I haven't bought full price game for at least 9 years.

FWIW if you're sure you're going to buy it, and are in the US, Amazon is still selling ps4/xbox/pc physical copies for just under $50.

On Topic: While I personally wouldn't do it as I can just wait for the game to get to a price I'm willing to pay (I do think $50 is a joke, $30-40 would have been far more appropriate) I get why people do. As was previously mentioned capitalism gives no shits and swings both ways.

The $50 usd price point stops me from buying this until it's lower as it's just another example of a big company taking advantage of the market. They haven't done anything that justifies charging 150% more for the PC version. All of the assets are the same, which they lay out on the steam page, so all they've done is a standard port of the complete edition.

This should have been in the $30-40 range like most late ports, but they know people will still buy it so they're going to make the extra money. I won't support it, and I wish more people would grasp the economics at work, but I get that isn't likely.

JohnBirshire wrote on May 22, 2020, 16:19:

thestryker wrote on May 22, 2020, 16:12:
I'm guessing you don't feel the same way when Steam is the only available choice for playing a game?

That's not really an accurate analogy. If a game is only on Steam it isn't because a bribe was paid to keep it off of other platforms.

The poster was talking about choices, and that's what I'm referring to. I don't like a lack of choices period whether it's due to exclusivity or not, but that isn't a barrier to purchase by itself.

Xero wrote on May 22, 2020, 13:14:
No wonder I didn't get my Steam notification of it being available today despite being on my Wishlist for months if not a year. That sucks. If anything EGS has become such an annoyance more than anything else.

Rather than buy exclusively, how about just offer it at a cheaper price at launch or something? Let people have OPTIONS! I hate being forced and will not abide by it.

I'm guessing you don't feel the same way when Steam is the only available choice for playing a game?

Personally I care more about the games themselves and developers in my choices of buying games rather than which billion dollar company gets part of the proceeds.

Blue wrote on May 4, 2020, 14:32:

thestryker wrote on May 4, 2020, 12:58:
I'd argue that Rise is exactly what you get when you decide to make a new trilogy, but clearly do not have anyone overseeing the structure of said trilogy. Force Awakens wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't break any new ground either. The Last Jedi was a perfectly fine movie, or rather it would have been if it wasn't supposed to be the middle movie of a trilogy and hadn't ignored everything that happened in the first one. There was simply nowhere logical to go to tie everything up in Rise so you get this movie which is largely just set pieces designed to tick the Star Wars boxes.

I'd love to know who over at Disney thought that having a trilogy with such dramatically different visions was ever going to end well. Sure they all made money, but I can't help but think at the same time they've also managed to sour people towards the series which is never good in the long run.

Giving Rian Johnson such free reign on the Last Jedi was a ridiculous decision. He made it impossible to even pretend there was a cohesive plan for the series. "Hey, I know... I'll shatter all the expectations from the first movie! That will be so awesome!" Yeesh.

Exactly, and this coming from Disney home of the Marvel movies which have to be meticulously curated in order for everything to make sense. I don't particularly think that has been to the benefit per se, but the fact that this never even seemed to have crossed their minds for Star Wars is baffling. At least we got Rogue One which, despite making me sad, is the best movie to bear Star Wars since the original trilogy.

I'd argue that Rise is exactly what you get when you decide to make a new trilogy, but clearly do not have anyone overseeing the structure of said trilogy. Force Awakens wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't break any new ground either. The Last Jedi was a perfectly fine movie, or rather it would have been if it wasn't supposed to be the middle movie of a trilogy and hadn't ignored everything that happened in the first one. There was simply nowhere logical to go to tie everything up in Rise so you get this movie which is largely just set pieces designed to tick the Star Wars boxes.

I'd love to know who over at Disney thought that having a trilogy with such dramatically different visions was ever going to end well. Sure they all made money, but I can't help but think at the same time they've also managed to sour people towards the series which is never good in the long run.

Kxmode wrote on Dec 13, 2019, 22:49:
Before this year, tribalism existed between PC and consoles. "PC Master Race" was a badge of honor for anyone who shelled out the money to build an excellent gaming system. Being a PC gamer meant any game available on PC either through Steam, GOG (for those who prefer DRM-free), or Uplay and Origin (for when the publisher wanted to force first-party exclusivity). No one had a problem with this ecosystem.

...

You're either being willfully ignorant or you're not old enough to have been gaming when Battlefield 3 was announced with Origin exclusivity. It was review bombed back to the stone age and people started making up shit about Origin to fit their narrative. Gee this sounds awfully familiar to the response that we all saw regarding Epic exclusivity. Don't act like Epic created this shit storm when it's simply modern gamers have a lot of loud shitty people counted among the whole.

Kxmode wrote on Dec 13, 2019, 22:49:
...

The day they reach parity with Steam and compete on merit not forced exclusivity or are marginalized will be a great time. I'll take either.

If Epic did this alone they'd end up like Origin and would never take customers from Steam. Origin for a while had refunds with an equal platform to Steam and sold several third party games. Guess what nobody gave a shit because they're lazy and want everything in one place. The only way Epic could compete outside of what they're doing would be by offering lower prices and we all saw how that went over when they took $10 off the price of everything. Certain devs/pubs shit a brick and their titles weren't on sale anymore despite the fact that Epic was eating the discount.

It's fine to not like what Epic is doing as it's pretty shitty, but don't pretend that there's some magical world where there can be real competition.

That article takes a surprisingly balanced approach to the whole thing, especially for someone at gamesindustry.biz. There really is no excuse for the level of abuse which has been aimed at some of the devs, but then again there no excuse for it period whether related to exclusivity or not.

My opinion on the whole thing has never changed: I like games and thus I get games I like. For me it's that simple, because there is no actual reason to not. There have been zero data breaches in the game store, and afaik the only one there ever was was directly related to Fortnite.

Valve is a shitty billion dollar company and so is Epic so which one gets my money doesn't matter to me. When it comes to independent developers who publish their own games EGS is the better choice simply because more money goes into the devs pocket. As for crowdfunding I don't particularly care what store the key is to, because again I wanted the game and didn't back it for the storefront. In that case I can understand why some people could be upset, but as long as the developers do give a steam option that's about the end of my caring (I believe Phoenix Point was giving steam keys as an option post exclusivity period, but I don't recall because I just took my EGS key).

At the end of the day Valve does still have a virtual monopoly despite the fact that there are several other options available there isn't the ubiquity. The way Epic is going about carving a piece out isn't ideal, but realistically there isn't another way for them to take a foothold. The reaction to Metro Exodus (at least in the US) was all the proof I needed for that conclusion: people were so "mad" about the exclusivity they bought it on steam for $10 more than it was being sold for on EGS. That is the level of irrational at play these days with the way people act doubly so on the internet.

I guess for me the other thing I see is console exclusivity and I think to myself: it could be worse, just look at that (at least microsoft appears to have abandoned this for first party titles).

this certainly explains the game still coming out despite the state it's in. I really liked what they were trying to do, but it certainly seemed like there was a lot more to do and this would serve as a good early access type starting point. I'd imagine this can all be traced back to the Prey 2 debacle.

jdreyer wrote on Oct 12, 2019, 14:02:
I don't follow esports so I'm curious to know how they have handled this situation in the past, and whether this response deviates from that.

This is from a US Gamer article I read:

"For comparison, when Overwatch League player Josh "Eqo" Corono, who plays for the Philadelphia Fusion, made a racist gesture and said "I am Korean" on a stream, he was suspended for three games and fined $3000."

Different game/league, but same company, and in my opinion a far bigger problem.

Color me not surprised that the monetization hasn't actually changed. Forsaken was $40 with the annual pass $30 under activision, and Shadowkeep is $35 with $10 seasons (it comes with 1 season, so you pay for 3). So we went from $30/ year for the yearly content to $40/ year unless you buy the expansion. I'm sure a lot of people will be willing to throw their money at this, but I'm definitely not one of them as this is the worst monetization in aaa gaming.

I skipped the last one after enjoying the one before it due to the fact that car upgrades were RNG and part of the monetization structure. Hopefully this has been ditched entirely, because it doesn't matter how cool your world is if a core mechanic in a car game is that stupid.

I do agree that NFSU2 was the perfect blend of arcade and customization, but there will always be a special place for the first Hot Pursuit.

Steam is a de-facto monopoly which is something that people seem to ignore. The large cut they take is also why every big publisher has their own storefront now.
Anyone with a memory would know that competing on features and availability alone will not unseat this monopoly. When EA launched Origin (yes I know they're the "evil empire") it had mostly feature parity, but also had refunds built in. They offered all sorts of games on the platform, not just EA. They also were giving away free games (I don't recall if this was upon launch or shortly after, but it didn't seem to last all that long).

Firstly the world erupted almost identically to Epic Exclusivity because how dare EA put Battlefield on their own launcher/store. Secondly everyone mostly shrugged and didn't change their habits except for the EA games they wanted to play. Origin was pretty clearly part of the reason that Steam got a revamped refund system when it did. Now I don't believe EA sells any third party games on Origin (I have no interest in scouring it to see). It obviously isn't a failure for EA making more money on its games, but it didn't make any industry impact outside of that.

Now we have all of the major publishers with their own launchers in varying degrees of competence (Bethesda's launcher is somehow the worst I've ever used, but it looks cool and is responsive!). There is no real competition to Steam (I try to buy single player things on GoG if they're available there, and I know some others do, but it's likely nothing the market notices). Epic appears to be doing the only thing that has a chance of breaking the status quo and in turn the Steam monopoly. I don't think what they're doing is something to be celebrated, but a simple fact of business.

My personal stance is shaped by the fact that I am not a fan of any billion dollar business as I'm very aware they just want every dollar they can get. I don't see a difference between Epic and Valve as they're both shitty faceless billion dollar companies just trying to take every dime. I also don't care about the vast majority of the platform features as my priority is playing games. So for me it really doesn't matter which platform a game is on if I want to play it I'll buy it.

To me AAA companies taking the exclusivity deals is far more scummy than indie devs as they're proving the cynical "every dime they can get" to be correct. I did end up getting Borderlands 3, but the only reason that happened is that GMG had a sale that actually applied to it so it was discounted.

If someone doesn't want to buy through Epic because of features etc more power to them. If the reason is the anti-competitive nature of what they're doing, while true, all you're doing is perpetuating a private monopoly which has never been good in the history of humanity. There are no good guys here just warring billion dollar companies that want all the money and I hope people remember that.

chickenboo wrote on Aug 7, 2019, 13:34:
If you bought a Nintendo Switch because the game you're anticipating says it's releasing on your device, only suddenly Sony swoops in and makes the game exclusive to PS4, you'd be just as upset! Then there's the Kickstarter projects...

Yeah, Epic's strategy "makes sense", but that doesn't mean I can't disagree with their approach. This whole blog comment comes across as one big strawman.

If someone spent money to buy a platform and then there was a switch to another platform they'd have to buy they'd have a very good reason to be upset. Using one free to access store over another is hardly the same thing. You've managed to define strawman.

All they're doing at this point is confirming what everyone should have known by now: they don't give a shit about anything but profit. Since the storefronts don't really lose anything on cheap region sales there's no real onus on them to fix a thing. I suppose developers could choose to not have their products available in cheaper markets if region locks aren't a possibility.

There will always be people willing to game the system, and that's the G2A model. I've never bought a game there, but that's because I've always taken the approach of this: If I'm not willing to pay the price it's available for I just won't get it.

Prez wrote on Apr 8, 2019, 14:21:
Steam, love it or hate it, is absolutely not killing PC gaming. It damn near single-handedly saved it when things were looking worse than grim for PC gaming. People forget just how bad things were in the PC gaming landscape before Steam resurrected it and made it a thriving market again. I'll be the first to admit that it is overflowing with way too much crap, takes too high of a percentage, and has suffered due to Valve's complacency because of how long they were the only show in town. In that regard, I'm thrilled the Epic Game Store came along, as competition is always a good thing (Fuck 3rd party exclusivity deals however). But revisionist history is something I've never been a fan of, and that's what this guy in part is doing.

Actually those rose colored glasses you and everyone else who keeps saying this are wearing must be nice. Steam landed and was universally hated because valve was forcing everyone to use a shitty slow launcher to play not only Half-life 2, but all of their multi-player products. In fact the first 2-3 years was virtually all valve until they released they could make money off of it.

Valve has had a stranglehold on the digital storefront and if you need an obvious example it would be Witcher 3 being on steam and selling massive numbers there. There is literally no reason to buy Witcher 3 on steam, and yet millions did so they could have it on their go to place rather than getting it from gog with no drm and supporting the devs directly. EA with origin had a refund system in place very early on and their launcher worked fine out of the gate not to mention having a decent feature set (not up to steam across the board) and nobody really bought the third party games there either.

Exclusivity isn't good, and in an ideal world what happened with Metro pricing in the US would be the way forward (Metro when it moved to EGS dropped to $50 from $60). Unfortunately from past examples it would appear that consumers won't budget from their preferred option unless they aren't given a choice. Thus we have launchers from all of the major AAA publishers and now epic trying to get a chunk of the curated market. We also live in a world where what epic is doing is perfectly legal, but that's a whole other can of worms.

End of the day having another major storefront is a good thing, but exclusivity and the fact that it seems as though epic just wants to supplant steam in the high revenue areas isn't. We all had a part in us getting here, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much of anything that can be done to change course.

I still don't understand why anyone gives a shit what storefront something is offered on. Hint: they're all big corporations and none of them give a flying fuck about the consumer aside from taking your money. I get that achievements and platform are important for some people, but for a single player game if these are your priority you don't give a shit about the game really.

As for moving stores midstream that is an unfortunate fact of life, but they seem to be approaching it reasonably. In the US the price on the Epic store is $49.99 (or was when I looked earlier) which is $10 below the steam price. If you purchase directly from a storefront rather than GMG etc at a lower price as a consumer this is a benefit.

This is just another example of people getting upset for the dumbest possible reasons.

So Metro Exodus has a 1 year exclusivity to the Epic store and in the US (unsure if elsewhere) they lowered the price due to the lower cut? Given that this is a single player game and they're honoring Steam preorder for anyone who did on any storefront I'm not really sure what the big crime is here.

Not that it's necessarily gonna be good, but the alliance of american football does start feb 9. CBS was pushing it pretty hard towards the end of the NFL season. Who knows we could all be shocked and it might actually be worth checking out.

That measles outbreak is just another snapshot of our future as idiots decide to undermine society further. Sadly there's at least one case that has made its way south here to Oregon. Only reason I feel kinda bad is that this outbreak is just kids which means their asshole parents are vaccinated and opted to not for them (aside from the real victims who can't get vaccinated).

I don't know enough about the game to make a for sure comment so this is just a guess. They make accounts to buy the discounted currency and then sell the account itself... but the key here is that epic seems to allow account linking. So my guess is that's where things come into play: link account buy shit from the new one.

If the currency isn't transferable this is the only way I could see it working. This is also something that would be virtually impossible for the company to stop without completely disabling the core ability to link accounts.

As long as there is some way to transfer goods from one person to another this will be possible. The unfortunate nature of the internet and popular things.

Bungie got $100m from a Chinese investor so I'm assuming that's what is underlying their ability to stand on their own. As for why activision let them go: I think we can all look at the financial failings of destiny 2.

I liked destiny 2 well enough, but the content monetization scheme is easily the worst in AAA gaming currently ($170 retail for everything). This might very well prove to be what killed it in the end despite the fact that it's no different than the first destiny.

Time will tell if it was activision being behind the aggressive monetization and whether or not bungie has anything new to offer.