RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[LadyCrimson]

Took a long shower, thought about it. Going to stick to my original thought of not buying under those options/waiting.

 

I remember that the whole reason I finally registered/installed Steam was because of Fallout:New Vegas. I wanted to play that so badly. So I caved. And it was a great game. For almost a year it was the only game I had on Steam.

 

But this time I can't follow you, Obsidian. I'm sorry. I'll buy it when it's somewhere else besides Epic and MS-store.

[Orogun01]

The Epic store is great! Now I don't have to spend my money on the Outer Worlds and I can buy other games.

[injurai]

Disney: We never really were good at making games. We have full confident in our partnership with EA.

 

EA:

 

Disney: We are reviving Lucasarts.

[Vitalis]

Disney: We never really were good at making games. We have full confident in our partnership with EA.

 

EA:

 

Disney: We are reviving Lucasarts.

*Lucasfilm's Games.

[mkreku]

You guys are going to give mkreku an aneurysm.

 

Not at all. Praising pirates is actually exactly what I expected from these people. On a game developer's board..

[Katphood]

For me it will stay the same as before, no GOG, no buy. I have big enough backlog to spent few years without worries.

Just curious here: why not buy a physical copy of the game for the PS4?

[Fenixp]

And think of all the games you will lose if Epic manages to ruin Steam.

If that's what you primarily care about, you should not have supported a publisher that won't allow you to download standalone installers.

 

Besides, even if Valve goes under, Steam is at this point too valuable to drop off the face of the Earth. The moment Valve gets done for, Steam'll be almost certainly bought and maintained by someone else.

 

Edit:

the fact that they are customer unfriendly on purpose (by not allowing reviews or letting publishers pick whether they want reviews, for starters)

There we go, Epic has made their feature roadmap public. User reviews are in the "mid-term" column, planned to roll out in 4-6 months. Apparently, features similar to Steam's workshop or automated refunds are also in the works.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Fenixp

[ShadySands]

VtM announcement tomorrow?

[Azdeus]

 

 

I'm a bit out of the loop but what's the reason for people being so upset about the actual epic store? Is it really bad to use?

 

Depends on what you consider "bad". It might be OK-ish technically but it's lacking a whole lot of features steam has, whether those are relevant to you is for you to decide.

 

The main issue (imho) is their way of doing business (just outright trying to buy customers by exclusivity rather than competing on features, or price) and the fact that they are customer unfriendly on purpose (by not allowing reviews or letting publishers pick whether they want reviews, for starters), basically all the progress that was made on information being readily availably to customers they intend to roll back so publishers can keep releasing broken products with as little repercussions as possible.

Because, face it, for most consumers there are two sources of information on a new game: platform reviews (Steam, Gog and the MS Store, all have them) and gaming "journalists". Seeing how the latter are about as reliable as leaving an alcoholic to guard a liquor store (the biggest trainwrecks from AAA publishers still get scores in the 60s and 70s...) they just try to get rid of the former.

There's also their refund policy, which apparently has improved, so I'm not sure if it's still a train-wreck but they made it as annoying as possible to get one so people, well, just wouldn't, really.

 

For the more "dedicated" gaming clientèle nothing really changes as we tend to rely on peer reviews and/or YouTubers anyway, but catering to publishers by actively being user-hostile doesn't particularly sit well with me.

 

Also, they are still not GDPR compliant as far as I can tell. I'll admit to not having looked really hard to see if they've changed that.

[Zoraptor]

VtM announcement tomorrow?

 

At this point it would be a fairly major surprise if there weren't one.

[GhostofAnakin]

VtM announcement tomorrow?

 

XBox exclusive? 

[Katphood]

It seems that Steam Store is banned in my country once again. The ban was lifted from the main store a while ago but now it's back...

 

 

Goddammit, Epic! What have you done?!

 

It's cool. Just like Mamoulian, I have a backlog that can last me an eternity. I have Fallout 1, 2, New Vegas, Arcanum etc. I'm good.

[LittleRose]

 

And think of all the games you will lose if Epic manages to ruin Steam.

If that's what you primarily care about, you should not have supported a publisher that won't allow you to download standalone installers.

 

Besides, even if Valve goes under, Steam is at this point too valuable to drop off the face of the Earth. The moment Valve gets done for, Steam'll be almost certainly bought and maintained by someone else.

 

Well, I hope so. And excuse me for supporting small indie projects that not even GoG wanted, because they were too small for them.

Also, my main concern is the fact, that Epic reads the data of other installers, mainly Steam. That data is none of their business. Steam's collecting enough data on its own. I don't want another platform that gathers even more information than Steam, Origin, Windows, and who knows what other big programs do without telling the users. I'm drawing the line right where they start reading each other's data. That's what I really dislike. I don't trust anyone, but I trust Epic even less.

[bugarup]

Steam's collecting enough data on its own. I don't want another platform that gathers even more information than Steam, Origin, Windows, and who knows what other big programs do without telling the users. I'm drawing the line right where they start reading each other's data. That's what I really dislike. I don't trust anyone, but I trust Epic even less.

 

I find this very thing amusing in slightly morbid way. Overconsumption and corporate greed doing irreparable damage to planet's climate while virtual intelligences belonging to predatory corporations are fighting to death over precious data on machines of unsuspecting humans - it's cyberpunk. I'm living in bloody science fiction! 

[LittleRose]

A thing that's worse doesn't make another bad thing good.

Also: We are living in the future. If you could show a digital assistend to the inventor of the first computer in his invention's early days, it would blow his mind. No flying cars, though.

Edited March 21, 2019 by LittleRose

[marelooke]

 

And think of all the games you will lose if Epic manages to ruin Steam.

If that's what you primarily care about, you should not have supported a publisher that won't allow you to download standalone installers.

 

Besides, even if Valve goes under, Steam is at this point too valuable to drop off the face of the Earth. The moment Valve gets done for, Steam'll be almost certainly bought and maintained by someone else.

 

Edit:

the fact that they are customer unfriendly on purpose (by not allowing reviews or letting publishers pick whether they want reviews, for starters)

There we go, Epic has made their feature roadmap public. User reviews are in the "mid-term" column, planned to roll out in 4-6 months. Apparently, features similar to Steam's workshop or automated refunds are also in the works.

 

 

Unless they changed their tune they are allowing publishers to disable those at a whim, so my point stands. Moreover, before you try to compete I think you should have the basics down, a working refund policy is one of those. Being "new" is no excuse here, Steam has had to thread new ground on a lot of topics, Epic does not have that excuse as there's enough other storefronts they can pick and choose ideas from nowadays.

Imho they don't have the features because they figured they could get away without having them and now they're just doing what every video game dev has been doing for a while: well, it's broken, and there was backlash, so, errr, we commit to fixing it, later, here's how we plan to do it. See? We're good guys?

If, and when, they get their act together they might become an actual competitor, assuming they stop the exclusives bollocks, but as it stand? Nope. Even the Microsoft Store has more features, and that's really saying something.

 

Moreover Epic has made it abundantly clear that they are going to be as biased towards publishers as they can get away with. The fact that user reviews are even on there does seem to indicate that the backlash must have hit rather harder than they (or the publishers) expected.

But hey, Steam had to be gently nudged on a lot of occasions as well, so who knows, there's hope yet.

 

 

 

I'm a bit out of the loop but what's the reason for people being so upset about the actual epic store? Is it really bad to use?

 

Depends on what you consider "bad". It might be OK-ish technically but it's lacking a whole lot of features steam has, whether those are relevant to you is for you to decide.

 

The main issue (imho) is their way of doing business (just outright trying to buy customers by exclusivity rather than competing on features, or price) and the fact that they are customer unfriendly on purpose (by not allowing reviews or letting publishers pick whether they want reviews, for starters), basically all the progress that was made on information being readily availably to customers they intend to roll back so publishers can keep releasing broken products with as little repercussions as possible.

Because, face it, for most consumers there are two sources of information on a new game: platform reviews (Steam, Gog and the MS Store, all have them) and gaming "journalists". Seeing how the latter are about as reliable as leaving an alcoholic to guard a liquor store (the biggest trainwrecks from AAA publishers still get scores in the 60s and 70s...) they just try to get rid of the former.

There's also their refund policy, which apparently has improved, so I'm not sure if it's still a train-wreck but they made it as annoying as possible to get one so people, well, just wouldn't, really.

 

For the more "dedicated" gaming clientèle nothing really changes as we tend to rely on peer reviews and/or YouTubers anyway, but catering to publishers by actively being user-hostile doesn't particularly sit well with me.

 

Also, they are still not GDPR compliant as far as I can tell. I'll admit to not having looked really hard to see if they've changed that.

 

 

From reading part of it, they are still in violation. They still collect personally identifiable information without asking explicit consent (mentioning it somewhere in the ToS or Privacy Policy is not good enough, that's why all those horrible cookie banners pop up all the time)

[Fenixp]

Imho they don't have the features because they figured they could get away without having them and now they're just doing what every video game dev has been doing for a while: well, it's broken, and there was backlash, so, errr, we commit to fixing it, later, here's how we plan to do it. See? We're good guys?

That's nonsense, given speed in which they're releasing fairly major features, it's quite obvious that Epic never really intended to release all client features at once - I'm willing to bet most of these features are baked into the client in various stages of development already, it's just a QA nightmare to release software with all of its bells and whistles enabled from the get go. It makes much more sense to spread features out into a bigger time period to ensure that the basis on which said features are built upon is fleshed out.

 

I'd also like to point out that the client is not in any way broken - feature incomplete and broken are two very different things.

 

Edit: Not offering refunds is BS and, again, violation of European law, but - y'know, they'll sort that out, they don't really have much of a choice in the matter

 

And excuse me for supporting small indie projects that not even GoG wanted, because they were too small for them.

itch.io - those small devs get a much bigger cut and more freedom in how they want to price their product over there as well. Itch.io also strongly discourages sale of Steam key and instead semi-forces developers to upload standalone installers

 

I don't want another platform that gathers even more information than Steam, Origin, Windows, and who knows what other big programs do without telling the users. I'm drawing the line right where they start reading each other's data. That's what I really dislike. I don't trust anyone, but I trust Epic even less.

You're either using Windows or are concerned about your privacy when using software. Yes, the two are mutually exclusive.

 

I hope you don't have an Android phone/iPhone as well as drawing a line at Epic store would be line drawn so far nobody'll see it - "Corporations can have all my telemetry on PC and phone usage, my precise location at any point in time and details like that, but damn them if they'll ever get my gaming habits down! ... I mean, outside of Steam. Steam can have those of course."

Edited March 21, 2019 by Fenixp

[Melusina]

Anyone interested in GOG event https://www.gog.com/newsletter/20190320_nl_countdown_en

[Malcador]

Hopefully another insomnia type deal where they force people to buy awful games for the greater good

[Chilloutman]

Spring sale, witcher 3 -75%, ELEX -60%

 

ok I might bite

[Keyrock]

^

 

[Malcador]

Spring sale, witcher 3 -75%, ELEX -60%

 

ok I might bite

Hold out for 75% off ELEX.

[marelooke]

 

Imho they don't have the features because they figured they could get away without having them and now they're just doing what every video game dev has been doing for a while: well, it's broken, and there was backlash, so, errr, we commit to fixing it, later, here's how we plan to do it. See? We're good guys?

That's nonsense, given speed in which they're releasing fairly major features, it's quite obvious that Epic never really intended to release all client features at once - I'm willing to bet most of these features are baked into the client in various stages of development already, it's just a QA nightmare to release software with all of its bells and whistles enabled from the get go. It makes much more sense to spread features out into a bigger time period to ensure that the basis on which said features are built upon is fleshed out.

 

I'd also like to point out that the client is not in any way broken - feature incomplete and broken are two very different things.

 

Edit: Not offering refunds is BS and, again, violation of European law, but - y'know, they'll sort that out, they don't really have much of a choice in the matter

 

Well, realistically the EGS is just a rebranded Fortnite launcher, so it's not exactly as "new" as they want you to believe. They just changed the name and threw it out there without putting in the effort to add even the most basic of features. That they are now adding those at a rapid pace might be nice, but until the features are out there they don't exist.

If anything it only shows how low effort the entire thing was (putting in the effort ahead of time wouldn't exactly have bankrupted them) and how contemptuously they view their customers.

Granted, that's not just Epic, but customers are getting tired of the "we will fix it later, promise" attitude, and yes "incomplete" is, imho, a form of "broken" and also something that needs "fixing". No Man's Sky and Anthem both released technically OK(-ish), but they still needed a "roadmap" to get to a usable, or at least desirable, state, and so does the EGS. Finish your product before releasing it, it's not hard, especially not when you sit on such stupidly high piles of money that they would make Smaug drool.

 

tl;dr can be summed up by a quote from the most tactful developer ever: "Talk is cheap. Show me the code." (or the product, in this instance)

[Malcador]

Only took them 15 years to get tired of it, that's some endurance

[marelooke]

Only took them 15 years to get tired of it, that's some endurance

In all fairness, it's been getting worse and worse, there just had to be a tipping point somewhere...better late than never, I guess...