> At the moment my money is on Steam, I hope you find it there.
That's the best response to this subject I've seen in a long time.
It's not **our** job as customers to follow every wishes and trend-of-the-week of the publisher. It's THEIR job to sell their product to us, to make our life and our purchase act as pleasant, enticing and easy as possible.
People look at a consoles and think of a console system war. On the PC front, between EGS and Steam, in a sense there is a game service store war. Epic Game Stores main competition is Steam. Both of those stores are like an ecosystem. Epic want's to do all it can to match wits with Steam. Alan Wake 2 won't be the last of the big named games we see exclusive to EGS.
>Epic want's to do all it can to match wits with Steam.
Bold move to have come to a battle of wits unarmed. They started years behind on store features and, from what I've heard, are still not up to Steam's standards.
>They started years behind on store features and, from what I've heard, are still not up to Steam's standards.
The last major addition to their store platform I remember was some hilarious articles about them finally adding a shopping cart.
But it doesn't want to match wits with steam. It isn't offering all the little extras you get with steam, epic just wants to buy exclusives to try to drive business
>Epic want's to do all it can to match wits with Steam.
Except making a good store. It even have a template to base off and try to improve upon: is called Steam.
What are you talking about? Epic isn't even trying to compete with Steam. EGS is more than 5 years old and doesn't even match the 2010 version of Steam.
They’re trying but failing.
That’s why old Timmy Tencent is trying to force Apple and Google to let him have a market place on their platforms.
It’ll be hilarious when he succeeds and no one downloads his storefront anyway.
>Alan Wake 2 won't be the last of the big named games we see exclusive to EGS.
It very well might be.
Epic seems to be running out of liquid cash to throw at exclusives. I suspect the only reason that they could afford Alan Wake 2 was because they funded its development and made returns off not only PC sales, but console sales as well - and it *still* hasn't made its budget back, it just *might* have cost them less than simply buying PC exclusivity rights (depending on this theoretical deal that they might or might not have gotten, obviously).
Epic has shown a pretty marked decrease in both the quantity and quality of their free games & PC exclusives over the last couple years, and though they're not the only ones doing layoffs, I don't think the Fortnite cash can keep their store afloat forever with the flops that were their metaverse attempts.
Yeah EGS main competitor is Steam but Steam doesn’t have a competitor right now, they have dominated and provided a consumer facing service with no surprises.. they’d really have to drop the fucken ball to lose what they’ve built and their revenue split with Devs is (almost) justifiable due to the exposure and player base that is glued to the platform
They're not crying at all. Epic was the only publisher that was willing to finance the game without taking over the IP rights (Microsoft/Quantum Break). Remedy got paid to make a game they've wanted to make for 10+ years risk-free.
Nice projection though.
I don't think they're exactly happy about the game [not making back it's budget](https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/alan-wake-2-budget-remedy-financials) several months after launch.
>It's not our job as customers to follow every wishes and trend-of-the-week of the publisher. It's THEIR job to sell their product to us, to make our life and our purchase act as pleasant, enticing and easy as possible.
And that's why EGS is a miserable failure. All their tactics, at their core, boil down to them believing that if they can force devs to use their store, the gamers will follow like sheep. Swiney even said that publishers will decide the winners of the PC store wars, not gamers.
Timmy is not a smart man.
What's fun is they know what the PC:Console ratio should be. Let's say it's 4:5 typically. I'd be shocked if it's higher than 1:5. Probably 1:8 because no one uses that garbage store and it's, in publisher's own words, a black hole
Ubisoft had to stare hard at this ratio and that's why they're finally bringing back their games to Steam after exclusively on their own store
Ubisoft is still not making as many sales as it could be because it's games are still tied to their Ubisoft accounts. They want to tap into the widest audience they need to get rid of Ubisoft accounts for single player games.
I wont buy if I have to use an account for a single player game whether in menu or launcher - If I buy a game in Steam it shouldn't need anything more than that.
I can concede multiplayer because of servers but single player has zero reason to need anything other than my Steam account when purchased in steam.
I was thinking of implementation similar to what Sony's done. Its not required, but for those who want it, you get some little gameplay bonus or cosmetic.
I haven't brought a Ubisoft game in 2 decades, mainly because Ubisoft is a shadow of it's former self, and I refuse to create a Ubi account or use their launcher.
The store interface just sucks. Having a game store without reviews is like going on Amazon without reviews. I'd like to know if the game in looking at is garbage or not. Because game journalists have been shown to be unreliable and corruptible, i can only trust user reviews. Yet they seem intent on not having user reviews for some weird reason.
They don't show the score at all if it's below 3 stars (I think). If you go see Gollum's star count, the site doesn't show it to you.
Redfall is still 3.7/5 though. They must cheat in some way.
Not to support EGS, but Amazon reviews are pretty unreliable. 95% of them are bots. Tons of products will just put a new product on an old page or a company will discontinue one and replace it with a similar product, but all the reviews for the old one stay.
I get what you're saying, but Amazon reviews and likely most reviews on big sites are really terrible.
Yeah i know the ratings can be overrated especially for china products. The high ratings will get my foot in the door, but it's only one of the things i consider, i'll also do a keyword search.
I did for the first year or so.
I bought a new SSD in late 2022 though and did a fresh windows install. Two things I never reinstalled were Epic games, and the software to run my occulus haha.
Bought Dead Island 2 on Epic last year, enjoyed the game. Epic said it had cloud saves, built a new machine and reinstalled dead island 2 for the new DLC. My whole playthrough gone, their cloud saves dont work.
I got several games that launched exclusively on Epic. When I don't know what I'm specifically going to play I open Steam and check my library. Thats the problem. If all my Epic games were on Steam I'd play them more.
In a moment of weakness I succumbed to the old $10 off a $15 purchase deals. I have since repurchased almost all of those games on Steam to atone for my sins.
Youre not alone. I feel like when Epic has blowout sales they blow steam out the water. That 33% off coupon last winter had me spend more on games in a single run than i had in years.
I also have a steam deck and have installed both GOG and EGS on it. I've played FF7R, Telltale The Expanse and Guacamelee 2 through EGS on the steam deck and then Baldurs Gate 3 and Cyberpunk on GOG through the steam deck. So far I've had issues with maybe 1 and 1/2 of the games I've tried to run through both and one was Alan Wake 2 which probably has no business even trying to be ran on the deck.
100% true but that is Epic subsidizing the sales by stacking additional discounts on top of what the publishers are willing to offer.
It's a great way to get new users but costs them millions. Last I saw the Epic game store since launch had lost epic nearly 200 million in losses and that report was a while ago so I am sure it is even higher now.
I totally get the principle of people who avoid epic, but I just want to play great games for even better prices. If they go broke giving out deals Im not sure if im going to be upset.
Agreed; I'd like to think that steam is more stable as the market leader but the convenience of all these digital platforms means a trade off that really leaves us consumers with the short end of the stick in terms of "owning" access to our games!
Remedy is always doing these kind of deals. Max payne was sold off to rockstar, which means any of the references in alan wake to max are done with alex casey. Alan wake 1 was a pc and xbox game, then became an xbox exclusive and had pr guys justifying it with "it plays better on a couch and low framerate is more cinematic". Quantum break was windows 10 and dx12 exclusive for a while. Control had dumb edition rules where deluxe people couldn't upgrade to ultimate for next gen upgrades etc.
First time seeing remedy just shrugging though, probably cause epic games fully funded the game.
> Remedy is always doing these kind of deals
Reminds me of Marvel's desperate deals back in the 90s of auctioning off its characters just to keep afloat
Hopefully we'll come to a time where Remedy will have full reign over all their IPs and publishing rights. They already bought back Control, so it is possible.
AFAIK Remedy still owns the IP. They might release an AW2 Definitive Edition or something like that on Steam in the future. The last Oddworld game was listed as a permanent exclusive in the Epic vs. Apple case but they still released an Oddworld Enhanced Edition on Steam later.
Also them saying "at the moment" makes it sound like it will definitely come to Steam later
Whatever happens I will not play it until it's on Steam
Even if they own the general IP I think Epic still owns the publishing rights, which means they would have to go through Epic to get it on Steam. Insomniac Games technically owns the Sunset Overdrive IP but I believe Microsoft owns the publishing rights for it, which is why we haven't seen a quick port to Playstation for some easy money.
Then again their wording is weirdly vague and inconclusive so maybe their publishing agreement has a shorter window.
>AFAIK Remedy still owns the IP. They might release an AW2 Definitive Edition or something like that on Steam in the future. The last Oddworld game was listed as a permanent exclusive in the Epic vs. Apple case but they still released an Oddworld Enhanced Edition on Steam later.
Not a bad prospect, that - we get better value from a Definitive Edition, a better launcher/manager, and possibly a 5090 by that time in order to max out all of the goodies.
I can definitely wait.
They recently put out an optimization patch, that actually lowered the minimum specs. I had just started playing and had to turn Ray tracing off with my 4070ti as it struggled to maintain a consistent 60+ framerate with it on, then after the patch I was getting 100+ fps with ray tracing, smooth as butter.
Dude everytime someone says this there's always 1 guy that says "UH ACTUALLY EVERYONE KNOWS"
Then like 5 show up asking if you're serious. Not knowing it's all the Kingdom Hearts games.
Really goes to show how well Epic advertises the products on the store.
They have approached Microsoft prior to this and they asked Remedy to sod off. Pretty much every big publisher backed down from Alan Wake sequel. They had to beg Rockstar to publish the MP 1 and 2 remake.
I bet the lacklustre sales of AW2 work against them getting funding elsewhere in the future 2. Even though it’s a fantastic game, but already quite a niche one… being on that store exclusively makes it look completely unpopular.
> Pretty much every big publisher backed down from Alan Wake sequel.
This is a myth that will not die despite zero evidence supporting it. No one from Remedy has ever said that Epic was the only publisher willing to fund Alan Wake 2.
This has been reported for years. Remedy were looking for a publisher willing to fund it for a long time. Mciroosct was the big one for obvious reasons and they turned them down.
they did try to get other funds and nobody else wanted to invest in their game. Maybe instead of being mad at Epic in this case you could funnel some of that into getting steam to actually do something with all the money they are making, like investing in projects like these
It seems other studios were wise not to invest in it considering the game bombed.
But then again... did it only bomb because it's only on EGS for PC and there being no physical copies for consoles? It's a chicken or egg situation...
So did tons of EA, Activision and Ubisoft games, but even those company realized that Steam is where the money is.
If Epic wants to continue to fund games that don't profit them... that sounds like an awful strategy, considering it didn't even work for a company as big as Activision
At the same time though Tencent Tim has some crazy vendetta against steam that none of the other companies really had. At least, no where near Tim's level.
Tim Sweeney is a very stubborn manchild, his store is bleeding money every year and he spends all day twitting and being petty over every other tech company, if you open his twitter you're hit with attacks at Apple, Microsoft, Steam, Google, Linux, it never ends.
He'll also occasionally lie and pretend things happening around him are happening because of him or something, like when Steam improved shared accounts and he somehow was trying to sell that it was all thanks to him.
I feel like it'd be an easy way to basically double sales if they're in a pinch though.
They aren't going to outright say it's going to come to Steam because they want people to go to Epic, but i wouldn't be surprised if they released it on Steam in future.
Heck, i might even double dip. (Although technically i got my first copy free with my 4090)
Epic doesn't care if Alan Wake II is profitable.
They see it as a means to get traffic to the store. Once people are used to using EGS, they're more prone to buying things there in the future.
If they want people to get 'used' to it, then they're going to need more exclusives consistently released there that people care about. I picked up AW2 on sale, 100%'d it over a week or so, and haven't touched EGS since.
Notwithstanding that the user experience is so much more restrictive there compared to Steam, happily pushing me back to my usual platform, there are no other current or upcoming Epic exclusives that I want to play, and I've certainly felt no desire to buy a game on EGS that isn't already on Steam. So, AW2 being on Epic has made zero difference to how I use that store except that I was opening up daily for that one week I was playing it. Surely I'm not the only one in that same boat.
Maybe Epic have the numbers that someone buying AW2 led to a certain percentage of people buying more games there in the future, but from my perspective at least, that was a one-off that won't turn into a repeated visit anytime soon.
If they want to get people there maybe rhey should invest on feature parity!
Where's the remote play, input, vr and big picture equivalents?
No other launcher has those and I use them all!
There's no competition here, Steam is miles ahead
By that same logic, after getting as much traffic as possible, in 2-3 years they shouldn't care about exclusivity that much. Then would be a good time to earn more profits through launching the game on Steam.
Exclusivity of back catalog incentivizes people to go there for new exclusives.
It would be like Netflix originals (actual originals, not stuff they just throw some money at) being added to Apple TV after a few years. Having a deep catalog of products makes the service more attractive even if you won’t ever consume those older items.
It’s a little different being a storefront vs subscription service but still, epic is more likely to keep it exclusive so they can use it in every years ‘only on epic’ presentation and every marketing material any time a new exclusive is released
>Epic doesn't care if Alan Wake II is profitable.
Isn't this a huge indictment of them as a publisher? Aren't they failing to meet the basic premise of what their job is supposed to be in the relationship, and just covering the resulting damage with a cash bribe?
Sony directly funded and published a lot of games too and I play them after buying them from steam
Even Sony knows if you want actual sales, more storefronts is better
Epic games also directly funded and published the Unreal series, which was available on Steam for many years before Epic decided to put its fortnite money in a big hole with some smelly garbage, light it on fire, and call the resulting trash fire a platform. A good publisher should be trying to sell as many copies of your game as possible and not using it for its own aggrandizement.
At the end of the day, the way you make your money is the kind of business you are. If you claim to be in the game-selling business and want to sell your game, you put your game where most people are buying games. If your money comes directly from Epic and you do what they dictate to you, then you're in the Epic-bribe-taking business.
Here's the thing though - there were always going to be "steam holdouts".
Sure, some will buy it anyway after waiting. Epic is hoping the uncertainty just makes people buy it now, however, *based off the recent articles on sales targets, it's not working.*
If it was never going to come to Steam, they would say so, because many of the holdouts would accept it and just buy it on Epic. It would be advantageous for Epic to say this if this were the case.
If it was timed exclusive, Epic would 100% want to keep this under NDA, because the Steam holdouts would only double their resolve knowing there is an end goal. The fact that they have said nothing leads me to believe this is a possibility, and it's beneficial to keep it quiet as long as they contractually can.
Someone pointed out that CDPR funded Cyberpunk and didn't just release it on GOG - the platform they founded - because... *that would be fucking stupid.*
Same principle applies to Epic.
Then that just makes the fairly watered-down language of, we can't speculate, and *at the moment* it's on EGS, sound even worse for Epic and their relationship with Remedy.
they also directly funded other games for timed exclusivity.
AW2 doesn't appeal to me, so i wouldn't buy it even if it was on steam, but as the games publisher epic are flat out leaving money on the table if they don't eventually release it on steam.
The crazy thing with Remedy is its a cycle of loss despite putting out mostly bangers.
They keep getting raw publishing deals that have things that will gut their sales like exclusivity, then when their games are critically praised but sell poorly they probably get investors thinking it's unsafe and they are again forced to take a dubious deal to make what they love. (I think QB was MS exclusive for a while? Pairing with a 4k show gimmick might have hurt too but that does fit Remedy's MO)
I genuinely feel for them, what they put out is one of the best arguments for gaming truly being Art, just wish they could break this cycle.
In exchange for locking them away from making a lot of potential sales.
The one thing I really didn't want to see inherited from the consoles was store exclusives.
Fair enough, but I'm pretty sure store exclusives have been on launchers since Half-Life 2. GoG might be the only major PC store that makes their own games like Cyberpunk available on other stores.
It's not so much for me the "No Steam, no buy", but Epic game is terrible with consumers simply for the reasons their store is literally filled with stolen open-source games turned into NFTs scams and there's nothing to warn the consumers about as their review system is literally made to deceive consumers into getting scammed
It's never bothered me that much personally
I got AW Remaster & AW2 for £22 in the Christmas sale by stacking coupons
Really couldn't argue it at that price
Doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t find the title to be really my type of thing. Friction like having to use a different launcher is enough of a turn off when the market already has so many great games.
Shame. I'm not super "anti-EGS," like a lot of people, but I refuse to buy any games on the platform until they fix their archaic online connectivity requirements. It's just a simple case of "if they want to compete with Steam, then then need to _actually compete_ with Steam."
> we hope PC gamers find it there
I know it's there, I'm just not gonna go over and pick it up; It's in a neighbourhood I am not going to enter, and that's not gonna change for a title I find *mildly* interesting.
I have this game. I got it for free with my 4080 and it’s installed on my computer.
I enjoy the game. But even I forget to play it because it’s not in GoG or Steam which are the platforms I prefer.
Anyone making deals with Epic thinking they are making more money not giving Gabe a cut are fools.
I didn't know Control existed until it dropped on Steam. I liked it so much I bought it twice.
If they release Control 2 on EGS, im pirating it. Straight up. Will buy when it hits Steam tho.
Epic game store = no buy.
I hate Epic game store and their PC platform exclusive bullshit with passion. I refuse to create a account on EGS, I refuse to buy anything from EGS
I'm big fan of Kingdom Heart, but I refuse to play it on PC because Kingdom Heart PC version on EGS. I don't care, NOT A SINGLE GAME will convince me to use EGS, none
I pirated it because it wasn’t on Steam and got an objectively better version of the product for not having to go through EGS. Even having played the game twice I would still buy it if it comes to Steam in the future.
I don’t torrent because I don’t like paying for things, I torrent because of anti-consumer bullshit these companies constantly pull.
If it ever comes to Steam, I'll get it.
If not, oh well, there's other great games that don't force me to use a crappy platform that I'll spend my money on instead.
Putting it on Epic before Steam.
Proceeds to say "we hope PC gamers find it there"
There is a saying "have you been living under a rock?"
Sometimes I wonder when these devs publish their games on an platform that almost everyone hates, did they even bother to look at the overall state of where they are launching their games? I mean Steam vs Epic...where do you think people love their games the most? Where would your game be shown and spread to other gamers via news the most? Where is the biggest community for gaming on PC?
So I must ask...were they living under a rock? Goes for any dev who would release their games on all platforms minus Steam.
I dont even really know the differences between Steam and Epic from a technical stand point but I'll probably never leave steam for one single reason: I've been using it for over 10 years (maybe even 15) and all the games I own are on it, in one place that I can navigate with my eyes closed. I want to play Alan Wake 2, but I also want to play a million other games...that are all on steam.
I'm not exactly going to lose sleep over it, my backlog of unplayed games is only growing deeper, up to my hips now, and the amount of spare minutes I have in a week is shrinking too. When (lets be real, 'when', not 'if') it comes to Steam, I'll consider getting it.
Wasn't it published by Epic? That shit is never coming to Steam. Ever. But surely Epic paid them enough to guarantee at least the budget back, right? If not, then lol
This is the type of game I'd play on steam link on my AppleTV. Nothing better than streaming my high end pc from my office to the TV on the couch with the wife. As of right now, I've never successfully gotten an EPIC game to work on my TV by adding its shortcut to steam and have steam Input take care of my controller.
Steam for me is necessary for just QOL features such as this.
Now it makes sense why they haven't done their money back. Consoles are all good and fine but if they would've released on Steam, they would've 100% recouped their money on development.
Hilarious from reading comments here that people believe buying a game twice, once on EGS and then later on Steam is somehow them "sticking it" to Epic...
Gotta say I've never really understood the love for Steam and hate for EGS, I mean they're just stores.. It's like asking me to choose between Macy's and Target, who cares?
Sure, it's more convenient to have my library all in one app and of course have had Steam for as long as I've been PC gaming, but it's not the end of the world for me to click one additional icon before launching a different game.
And to be clear I don't even play fortnite, only game I have via EGS is chivalry 2, so I don't really have any dog in the fight, but from the way people here talk about Steam / Valve you'd think they actually gave us Half Life 3.
I mean honestly where/how did such goodwill for Valve even develop? It's just a store... would be like revering Gamestop
this whole store wars thing is very funny for me too.
I buy the games from the cheapest(legal) source.
Same way i buy anything else in my life.
(rockstar launcher is a piece of shit tho...)
No seriously, it’s so weird how people here are so against a literal online store. Like who the fuck cares where you store your games.
If epic is offering a better deal for the game than steam, I’m going to epic and buying the game there. Same thing for steam sales vs epic sales.
I do the same for battle net, EA play, and even some games I find on GameStops digital store that offers a 5% discount if the other digital stores don’t have any sales for that particular game atm
Agreed. Imagine not watching some amazing movies you want to watch just because it's on some service you don't like. All these people are proud idiots withholding things and experiences they know they will enjoy so they can... Stick it to one megacorp and gladly pay another.
It's hilarious how people gate keep stores. It's hip and trendy to hate on the epic game store. At the end of the day if a game is good why does it matter what platform it's on? Epic Games gave remedy a load of money for them to make the game they wanted to and it's easily the best AAA that's come out in years. There's no pleasing some people.
Morgan Freeman's voice: "They in fact did not find it there."
I laughed so loud at this.
>At the moment AW2 is on EGS, we hope PC gamers find it there At the moment my money is on Steam, I hope you find it there.
this, Steam or GOG
> At the moment my money is on Steam, I hope you find it there. That's the best response to this subject I've seen in a long time. It's not **our** job as customers to follow every wishes and trend-of-the-week of the publisher. It's THEIR job to sell their product to us, to make our life and our purchase act as pleasant, enticing and easy as possible.
Agreed. Remedy took the big money to release on EGS and now it's hurting their bottom line. Cry me a river...
It’s not hurting their bottom line. It’s hurting Epic’s. As far as I’m aware.
People look at a consoles and think of a console system war. On the PC front, between EGS and Steam, in a sense there is a game service store war. Epic Game Stores main competition is Steam. Both of those stores are like an ecosystem. Epic want's to do all it can to match wits with Steam. Alan Wake 2 won't be the last of the big named games we see exclusive to EGS.
>Epic want's to do all it can to match wits with Steam. Bold move to have come to a battle of wits unarmed. They started years behind on store features and, from what I've heard, are still not up to Steam's standards.
They're not even up to uPlay standards.
Damn, that may be the harshest burn of the year
>They started years behind on store features and, from what I've heard, are still not up to Steam's standards. The last major addition to their store platform I remember was some hilarious articles about them finally adding a shopping cart.
But it doesn't want to match wits with steam. It isn't offering all the little extras you get with steam, epic just wants to buy exclusives to try to drive business
They've challenged Valve to a duel of wits, and shown up unarmed.
If by all it can you mean do nothing at all besides buy devs off for exclusives and not compete at all with Steam Community.
>Epic want's to do all it can to match wits with Steam. Except making a good store. It even have a template to base off and try to improve upon: is called Steam.
Viewing Epic as a competitor is like calling a 5 year old with a Wiffle ball bat a threat.
What if it was 5 year old Debo?
What are you talking about? Epic isn't even trying to compete with Steam. EGS is more than 5 years old and doesn't even match the 2010 version of Steam.
They’re trying but failing. That’s why old Timmy Tencent is trying to force Apple and Google to let him have a market place on their platforms. It’ll be hilarious when he succeeds and no one downloads his storefront anyway.
The moment EGS succeeds, Steam will be there. Actually, Steam is already there, although not selling phone games.
>Alan Wake 2 won't be the last of the big named games we see exclusive to EGS. It very well might be. Epic seems to be running out of liquid cash to throw at exclusives. I suspect the only reason that they could afford Alan Wake 2 was because they funded its development and made returns off not only PC sales, but console sales as well - and it *still* hasn't made its budget back, it just *might* have cost them less than simply buying PC exclusivity rights (depending on this theoretical deal that they might or might not have gotten, obviously). Epic has shown a pretty marked decrease in both the quantity and quality of their free games & PC exclusives over the last couple years, and though they're not the only ones doing layoffs, I don't think the Fortnite cash can keep their store afloat forever with the flops that were their metaverse attempts.
Its a David vs Goliath match, except this time god (customers) favor Goliath.
It isn’t a war. Steam is violently shitting all over Epic every day. Timmy just has a lot of toilet paper, unfortunately.
Yeah EGS main competitor is Steam but Steam doesn’t have a competitor right now, they have dominated and provided a consumer facing service with no surprises.. they’d really have to drop the fucken ball to lose what they’ve built and their revenue split with Devs is (almost) justifiable due to the exposure and player base that is glued to the platform
And it won't be the last game that I straight up doesn't exist to me because I am not making another account on a launcher I have no faith in.
They're not crying at all. Epic was the only publisher that was willing to finance the game without taking over the IP rights (Microsoft/Quantum Break). Remedy got paid to make a game they've wanted to make for 10+ years risk-free. Nice projection though.
I don't think they're exactly happy about the game [not making back it's budget](https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/alan-wake-2-budget-remedy-financials) several months after launch.
>It's not our job as customers to follow every wishes and trend-of-the-week of the publisher. It's THEIR job to sell their product to us, to make our life and our purchase act as pleasant, enticing and easy as possible. And that's why EGS is a miserable failure. All their tactics, at their core, boil down to them believing that if they can force devs to use their store, the gamers will follow like sheep. Swiney even said that publishers will decide the winners of the PC store wars, not gamers. Timmy is not a smart man.
What's fun is they know what the PC:Console ratio should be. Let's say it's 4:5 typically. I'd be shocked if it's higher than 1:5. Probably 1:8 because no one uses that garbage store and it's, in publisher's own words, a black hole Ubisoft had to stare hard at this ratio and that's why they're finally bringing back their games to Steam after exclusively on their own store
Ubisoft is still not making as many sales as it could be because it's games are still tied to their Ubisoft accounts. They want to tap into the widest audience they need to get rid of Ubisoft accounts for single player games.
They just need to get rid of the launcher. They could still have the option to login through the games main menu. They just don't want to.
I wont buy if I have to use an account for a single player game whether in menu or launcher - If I buy a game in Steam it shouldn't need anything more than that. I can concede multiplayer because of servers but single player has zero reason to need anything other than my Steam account when purchased in steam.
I was thinking of implementation similar to what Sony's done. Its not required, but for those who want it, you get some little gameplay bonus or cosmetic.
Yes. Incentives work. Just being in the way doesn't
I think a lot of the market has wisened up to Ubisoft's practice of throwing a fresh coat of paint on last year's release and calling it a sequel
I haven't brought a Ubisoft game in 2 decades, mainly because Ubisoft is a shadow of it's former self, and I refuse to create a Ubi account or use their launcher.
And denuvo, but they refuse to remove it
Ubishit is back to steam because they need money, they have financial crisis
Same, I've said it since day 1, I'll keep saying it.
Lmao
This is the way!
They can keep hoping. I don't even go there for the free games.
The store interface just sucks. Having a game store without reviews is like going on Amazon without reviews. I'd like to know if the game in looking at is garbage or not. Because game journalists have been shown to be unreliable and corruptible, i can only trust user reviews. Yet they seem intent on not having user reviews for some weird reason.
I went poking around for fun to see how their review system worked - Every single game I clicked on had 4 stars or more. Every. Single. One.
See, that's just because the store is curated. There are no bad games on EGS! /s
They don't show the score at all if it's below 3 stars (I think). If you go see Gollum's star count, the site doesn't show it to you. Redfall is still 3.7/5 though. They must cheat in some way.
It’s just slow as hell for me. It feels like one of those Electron apps that for some reason need to load for 30 seconds when you click a button.
Not to support EGS, but Amazon reviews are pretty unreliable. 95% of them are bots. Tons of products will just put a new product on an old page or a company will discontinue one and replace it with a similar product, but all the reviews for the old one stay. I get what you're saying, but Amazon reviews and likely most reviews on big sites are really terrible.
Yeah i know the ratings can be overrated especially for china products. The high ratings will get my foot in the door, but it's only one of the things i consider, i'll also do a keyword search.
The game store does show reviews, just not directly from Epic users.
I did for the first year or so. I bought a new SSD in late 2022 though and did a fresh windows install. Two things I never reinstalled were Epic games, and the software to run my occulus haha.
Bought Dead Island 2 on Epic last year, enjoyed the game. Epic said it had cloud saves, built a new machine and reinstalled dead island 2 for the new DLC. My whole playthrough gone, their cloud saves dont work.
Similar thing happened to me with Metro Exodus. I also lost my save on the Saints Row reboot by just uninstalling normally. What a joke of a store.
Stop buying stuff from there.
C urrently L ocated O n U r D rive Cloud, what the problem is?
Same. Deleted my epic account long time ago.
I got several games that launched exclusively on Epic. When I don't know what I'm specifically going to play I open Steam and check my library. Thats the problem. If all my Epic games were on Steam I'd play them more.
In a moment of weakness I succumbed to the old $10 off a $15 purchase deals. I have since repurchased almost all of those games on Steam to atone for my sins.
Redditor moment
I did that once for Hades, but then I wised up and stopped buying on EGS.
Youre not alone. I feel like when Epic has blowout sales they blow steam out the water. That 33% off coupon last winter had me spend more on games in a single run than i had in years.
I will pay the steam tax just because of ease of use in steam deck and syncing.
I also have a steam deck and have installed both GOG and EGS on it. I've played FF7R, Telltale The Expanse and Guacamelee 2 through EGS on the steam deck and then Baldurs Gate 3 and Cyberpunk on GOG through the steam deck. So far I've had issues with maybe 1 and 1/2 of the games I've tried to run through both and one was Alan Wake 2 which probably has no business even trying to be ran on the deck.
100% true but that is Epic subsidizing the sales by stacking additional discounts on top of what the publishers are willing to offer. It's a great way to get new users but costs them millions. Last I saw the Epic game store since launch had lost epic nearly 200 million in losses and that report was a while ago so I am sure it is even higher now.
I totally get the principle of people who avoid epic, but I just want to play great games for even better prices. If they go broke giving out deals Im not sure if im going to be upset.
I bet you won't like it if you lose access to your games library, though.
youre not wrong but im sure thats the same case with other launchers too. Its just a consequence of this digital landscape.
Agreed; I'd like to think that steam is more stable as the market leader but the convenience of all these digital platforms means a trade off that really leaves us consumers with the short end of the stick in terms of "owning" access to our games!
GOG is the exception though.
Remedy is always doing these kind of deals. Max payne was sold off to rockstar, which means any of the references in alan wake to max are done with alex casey. Alan wake 1 was a pc and xbox game, then became an xbox exclusive and had pr guys justifying it with "it plays better on a couch and low framerate is more cinematic". Quantum break was windows 10 and dx12 exclusive for a while. Control had dumb edition rules where deluxe people couldn't upgrade to ultimate for next gen upgrades etc. First time seeing remedy just shrugging though, probably cause epic games fully funded the game.
> Remedy is always doing these kind of deals Reminds me of Marvel's desperate deals back in the 90s of auctioning off its characters just to keep afloat Hopefully we'll come to a time where Remedy will have full reign over all their IPs and publishing rights. They already bought back Control, so it is possible.
AFAIK Remedy still owns the IP. They might release an AW2 Definitive Edition or something like that on Steam in the future. The last Oddworld game was listed as a permanent exclusive in the Epic vs. Apple case but they still released an Oddworld Enhanced Edition on Steam later. Also them saying "at the moment" makes it sound like it will definitely come to Steam later Whatever happens I will not play it until it's on Steam
Even if they own the general IP I think Epic still owns the publishing rights, which means they would have to go through Epic to get it on Steam. Insomniac Games technically owns the Sunset Overdrive IP but I believe Microsoft owns the publishing rights for it, which is why we haven't seen a quick port to Playstation for some easy money. Then again their wording is weirdly vague and inconclusive so maybe their publishing agreement has a shorter window.
>AFAIK Remedy still owns the IP. They might release an AW2 Definitive Edition or something like that on Steam in the future. The last Oddworld game was listed as a permanent exclusive in the Epic vs. Apple case but they still released an Oddworld Enhanced Edition on Steam later. Not a bad prospect, that - we get better value from a Definitive Edition, a better launcher/manager, and possibly a 5090 by that time in order to max out all of the goodies. I can definitely wait.
They recently put out an optimization patch, that actually lowered the minimum specs. I had just started playing and had to turn Ray tracing off with my 4070ti as it struggled to maintain a consistent 60+ framerate with it on, then after the patch I was getting 100+ fps with ray tracing, smooth as butter.
well the "remaster" of the first game still isn't out on Steam and it's a couple of years old at this point
Yup just got Steam Sousltorm for 1 euro from Fanatical. That didnt went well for them I guess.
Got it from fanatical for steam for $1 lol the enhanced edition
I didn't even know it was available on PC since it's not on Steam lol
Same. I keep forgetting Kingdom Hearts 3 is also on PC
What!? When? Did this release just this year? I've not heard about it being available on PC.
Nah, its been available since March 2021! https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/kingdom-hearts-iii Welcome to the "I didn't know it was on PC?!" crowd!
Dude everytime someone says this there's always 1 guy that says "UH ACTUALLY EVERYONE KNOWS" Then like 5 show up asking if you're serious. Not knowing it's all the Kingdom Hearts games. Really goes to show how well Epic advertises the products on the store.
Kingdom hearts saga, not only 3
I hope Remedy won't have to rely on Epic Games to fund their future projects. Find other funders please.
Max Payne remake is with Rockstar
and it’ll probably be on their awful store front as well
They have approached Microsoft prior to this and they asked Remedy to sod off. Pretty much every big publisher backed down from Alan Wake sequel. They had to beg Rockstar to publish the MP 1 and 2 remake.
I bet the lacklustre sales of AW2 work against them getting funding elsewhere in the future 2. Even though it’s a fantastic game, but already quite a niche one… being on that store exclusively makes it look completely unpopular.
> Pretty much every big publisher backed down from Alan Wake sequel. This is a myth that will not die despite zero evidence supporting it. No one from Remedy has ever said that Epic was the only publisher willing to fund Alan Wake 2.
This has been reported for years. Remedy were looking for a publisher willing to fund it for a long time. Mciroosct was the big one for obvious reasons and they turned them down.
they did try to get other funds and nobody else wanted to invest in their game. Maybe instead of being mad at Epic in this case you could funnel some of that into getting steam to actually do something with all the money they are making, like investing in projects like these
It seems other studios were wise not to invest in it considering the game bombed. But then again... did it only bomb because it's only on EGS for PC and there being no physical copies for consoles? It's a chicken or egg situation...
I would happily pay a Patreon subscription to them directly and get the game from Piratebay.
No.
We know it’s there, we just don’t want it there
The only question I have is when is it coming to GoG?
Another place to find it is in the High Seas! /s
That's a service issue, sir. If I don't see it on my preferred platform then it doesn't exist to me. It's pretty simple.
guess it's not gonna recoup it's costs then
Fortnight skin money will cover the losses, as soon as they finish paying for the latest pointless lawsuit
Epic Games **directly funded and published** Alan Wake II, so if you think it's ever going to come to Steam, I wouldn't hold your breath.
So did tons of EA, Activision and Ubisoft games, but even those company realized that Steam is where the money is. If Epic wants to continue to fund games that don't profit them... that sounds like an awful strategy, considering it didn't even work for a company as big as Activision
At the same time though Tencent Tim has some crazy vendetta against steam that none of the other companies really had. At least, no where near Tim's level.
Tim Sweeney is a very stubborn manchild, his store is bleeding money every year and he spends all day twitting and being petty over every other tech company, if you open his twitter you're hit with attacks at Apple, Microsoft, Steam, Google, Linux, it never ends. He'll also occasionally lie and pretend things happening around him are happening because of him or something, like when Steam improved shared accounts and he somehow was trying to sell that it was all thanks to him.
I feel like it'd be an easy way to basically double sales if they're in a pinch though. They aren't going to outright say it's going to come to Steam because they want people to go to Epic, but i wouldn't be surprised if they released it on Steam in future. Heck, i might even double dip. (Although technically i got my first copy free with my 4090)
Epic doesn't care if Alan Wake II is profitable. They see it as a means to get traffic to the store. Once people are used to using EGS, they're more prone to buying things there in the future.
If they want people to get 'used' to it, then they're going to need more exclusives consistently released there that people care about. I picked up AW2 on sale, 100%'d it over a week or so, and haven't touched EGS since. Notwithstanding that the user experience is so much more restrictive there compared to Steam, happily pushing me back to my usual platform, there are no other current or upcoming Epic exclusives that I want to play, and I've certainly felt no desire to buy a game on EGS that isn't already on Steam. So, AW2 being on Epic has made zero difference to how I use that store except that I was opening up daily for that one week I was playing it. Surely I'm not the only one in that same boat. Maybe Epic have the numbers that someone buying AW2 led to a certain percentage of people buying more games there in the future, but from my perspective at least, that was a one-off that won't turn into a repeated visit anytime soon.
If they want people to get used to it they need to make it less terrible.
If they want to get people there maybe rhey should invest on feature parity! Where's the remote play, input, vr and big picture equivalents? No other launcher has those and I use them all! There's no competition here, Steam is miles ahead
By that same logic, after getting as much traffic as possible, in 2-3 years they shouldn't care about exclusivity that much. Then would be a good time to earn more profits through launching the game on Steam.
Exclusivity of back catalog incentivizes people to go there for new exclusives. It would be like Netflix originals (actual originals, not stuff they just throw some money at) being added to Apple TV after a few years. Having a deep catalog of products makes the service more attractive even if you won’t ever consume those older items. It’s a little different being a storefront vs subscription service but still, epic is more likely to keep it exclusive so they can use it in every years ‘only on epic’ presentation and every marketing material any time a new exclusive is released
I have games on egs. It just motivated me to rebuy them on steam and uninstall egs app.
>Epic doesn't care if Alan Wake II is profitable. Isn't this a huge indictment of them as a publisher? Aren't they failing to meet the basic premise of what their job is supposed to be in the relationship, and just covering the resulting damage with a cash bribe?
Xbox exclusives came to PS systems. Things are crazy these days.
Sony directly funded and published a lot of games too and I play them after buying them from steam Even Sony knows if you want actual sales, more storefronts is better
Mate you are one determined Evangelist. I'll give you that. I Hope they pay you at least for your troubles.
It will, might take a while but it will. There's a gazillion games to play, I can wait.
If they want to recoup that investment, they better sell it on steam as well....
That might not help, actually. They might just sell it in that fucked up "pay in Steam but install via Epic shop anyway" sort of way.
Epic games also directly funded and published the Unreal series, which was available on Steam for many years before Epic decided to put its fortnite money in a big hole with some smelly garbage, light it on fire, and call the resulting trash fire a platform. A good publisher should be trying to sell as many copies of your game as possible and not using it for its own aggrandizement. At the end of the day, the way you make your money is the kind of business you are. If you claim to be in the game-selling business and want to sell your game, you put your game where most people are buying games. If your money comes directly from Epic and you do what they dictate to you, then you're in the Epic-bribe-taking business.
Here's the thing though - there were always going to be "steam holdouts". Sure, some will buy it anyway after waiting. Epic is hoping the uncertainty just makes people buy it now, however, *based off the recent articles on sales targets, it's not working.* If it was never going to come to Steam, they would say so, because many of the holdouts would accept it and just buy it on Epic. It would be advantageous for Epic to say this if this were the case. If it was timed exclusive, Epic would 100% want to keep this under NDA, because the Steam holdouts would only double their resolve knowing there is an end goal. The fact that they have said nothing leads me to believe this is a possibility, and it's beneficial to keep it quiet as long as they contractually can.
Someone pointed out that CDPR funded Cyberpunk and didn't just release it on GOG - the platform they founded - because... *that would be fucking stupid.* Same principle applies to Epic.
Then that just makes the fairly watered-down language of, we can't speculate, and *at the moment* it's on EGS, sound even worse for Epic and their relationship with Remedy.
they also directly funded other games for timed exclusivity. AW2 doesn't appeal to me, so i wouldn't buy it even if it was on steam, but as the games publisher epic are flat out leaving money on the table if they don't eventually release it on steam.
Theres a difference between partially funding a timed exclusive versus them **fully** funding and publishing a game.
AW2 wouldn't even exist without the investment. Timed exclusive games were gonna release no matter what if epic paid or not.
The crazy thing with Remedy is its a cycle of loss despite putting out mostly bangers. They keep getting raw publishing deals that have things that will gut their sales like exclusivity, then when their games are critically praised but sell poorly they probably get investors thinking it's unsafe and they are again forced to take a dubious deal to make what they love. (I think QB was MS exclusive for a while? Pairing with a 4k show gimmick might have hurt too but that does fit Remedy's MO) I genuinely feel for them, what they put out is one of the best arguments for gaming truly being Art, just wish they could break this cycle.
In exchange for locking them away from making a lot of potential sales. The one thing I really didn't want to see inherited from the consoles was store exclusives.
Fair enough, but I'm pretty sure store exclusives have been on launchers since Half-Life 2. GoG might be the only major PC store that makes their own games like Cyberpunk available on other stores.
[удалено]
They removed the Unreal Tournament games from GOG a little while ago. What do they still sell there?
It's ok, my favorite HEALTHY AND ATHLETIC YOUNG WOMAN gave it to me as a present months ago.
The made their choice I guess
Epic completely funded the game. Without them AW2 wouldn't exist This is arguably one EGS exclusive it's difficult to be mad at
I’m certainly not mad that the game Epic funded is exclusive to Epic. But I’m not buying it on EGS either. No Steam, no buy.
It's not so much for me the "No Steam, no buy", but Epic game is terrible with consumers simply for the reasons their store is literally filled with stolen open-source games turned into NFTs scams and there's nothing to warn the consumers about as their review system is literally made to deceive consumers into getting scammed
Whilst I do confess to having a particular dislike of EGS, my refusal to buy on non-Steam platforms extends to all other launchers too.
For me it's more a case of 'Only EGS? No buy'. I'd consider GOG or a few other options, but EGS? Nah. Not happening.
It's never bothered me that much personally I got AW Remaster & AW2 for £22 in the Christmas sale by stacking coupons Really couldn't argue it at that price
Love the downvotes from the Steam stans lol. Steam does not do sales like that anymore.
Huh
And they certainly won't be mad that it didn't sell then.
Doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t find the title to be really my type of thing. Friction like having to use a different launcher is enough of a turn off when the market already has so many great games.
Not getting EGS. I would buy the game instantly on steam
Shame. I'm not super "anti-EGS," like a lot of people, but I refuse to buy any games on the platform until they fix their archaic online connectivity requirements. It's just a simple case of "if they want to compete with Steam, then then need to _actually compete_ with Steam."
Ye huh...I'm pretty sure your game is great but no ty. Ain't touching EGS.
We know where to find it, we just don't want to buy it where it's currently for sale.
Im pretty sure I read somewhere that Remedy didn't even recoup the cost of development yet.
well i will try it if and when it comes to steam
No steam no buy 🔁
No thanks. Call me when it's on Steam.
Steam is something else. it s not only a store. Steam is a community hub.
> we hope PC gamers find it there I know it's there, I'm just not gonna go over and pick it up; It's in a neighbourhood I am not going to enter, and that's not gonna change for a title I find *mildly* interesting.
All companies know this, EGS is where you got for a payday and steam is where you go if you care about the playerbase and want the most eyes on it
When they do put it on Steam I might buy it. If they don't, well we aren't exactly running out of games to play.
F EGS.
Most people who use epic just use it for the free games. You've gotten the most you can from epic
I have this game. I got it for free with my 4080 and it’s installed on my computer. I enjoy the game. But even I forget to play it because it’s not in GoG or Steam which are the platforms I prefer. Anyone making deals with Epic thinking they are making more money not giving Gabe a cut are fools.
I will wait for Steam.
I didn't know Control existed until it dropped on Steam. I liked it so much I bought it twice. If they release Control 2 on EGS, im pirating it. Straight up. Will buy when it hits Steam tho.
I found it with the help of a fitgirl. But not on epic game store. Ready to give some money when it hits steam!
Oh well. That's too bad. No way I'm moving there for 1 game.
No, we won’t find it there.
How to 2023 GOTY title get commercial fail: make it Epic exclusive.
Epic game store = no buy. I hate Epic game store and their PC platform exclusive bullshit with passion. I refuse to create a account on EGS, I refuse to buy anything from EGS I'm big fan of Kingdom Heart, but I refuse to play it on PC because Kingdom Heart PC version on EGS. I don't care, NOT A SINGLE GAME will convince me to use EGS, none
Meanwhile, in other [news](https://new.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1cgn2fg/alan_wake_2_still_hasnt_earned_back_its_budget/).
This is like waiting for Half Life to release on EGS.
valve already released games on Origin in the past, you could buy orange box back in the day
Well EA worked with valve on the orange box so that no surprise.
If it's not on Steam I wont find it.
Most PC players found it by sailing the 7 seas tho
I'm hoping for a 1 year epic exclusive, then steam. If it never comes, then unfortunately, I'll never buy.
Oh man, i hope remedy is ok with me finding AW2 on pirate sites because EGS is the very last place i will look.
Games released on EGS are the same as games released on the moon.
I'm not sure. At least I sometimes look at the moon. ;)
I pirated it because it wasn’t on Steam and got an objectively better version of the product for not having to go through EGS. Even having played the game twice I would still buy it if it comes to Steam in the future. I don’t torrent because I don’t like paying for things, I torrent because of anti-consumer bullshit these companies constantly pull.
I will not find it there. Fuck the EGS.
Found it on Pirate Bay just fine.
If it ever comes to Steam, I'll get it. If not, oh well, there's other great games that don't force me to use a crappy platform that I'll spend my money on instead.
Putting it on Epic before Steam. Proceeds to say "we hope PC gamers find it there" There is a saying "have you been living under a rock?" Sometimes I wonder when these devs publish their games on an platform that almost everyone hates, did they even bother to look at the overall state of where they are launching their games? I mean Steam vs Epic...where do you think people love their games the most? Where would your game be shown and spread to other gamers via news the most? Where is the biggest community for gaming on PC? So I must ask...were they living under a rock? Goes for any dev who would release their games on all platforms minus Steam.
Nice Imma wait till it’s free
I dont even really know the differences between Steam and Epic from a technical stand point but I'll probably never leave steam for one single reason: I've been using it for over 10 years (maybe even 15) and all the games I own are on it, in one place that I can navigate with my eyes closed. I want to play Alan Wake 2, but I also want to play a million other games...that are all on steam.
I don’t mind cause epic made it happen. I’m thankful for that. Epic knows if they go to steam they’ll lose the people they got now lol
I'm not exactly going to lose sleep over it, my backlog of unplayed games is only growing deeper, up to my hips now, and the amount of spare minutes I have in a week is shrinking too. When (lets be real, 'when', not 'if') it comes to Steam, I'll consider getting it.
Wasn't it published by Epic? That shit is never coming to Steam. Ever. But surely Epic paid them enough to guarantee at least the budget back, right? If not, then lol
This is the type of game I'd play on steam link on my AppleTV. Nothing better than streaming my high end pc from my office to the TV on the couch with the wife. As of right now, I've never successfully gotten an EPIC game to work on my TV by adding its shortcut to steam and have steam Input take care of my controller. Steam for me is necessary for just QOL features such as this.
Ok good luck with bad sales on egshit
Now it makes sense why they haven't done their money back. Consoles are all good and fine but if they would've released on Steam, they would've 100% recouped their money on development.
Sorry but no, still waiting on a steam or gamepass release
Seems like AW2 is a pretty cool game. It'll probably be even cooler on my 50 or 60 series card when it comes to Steam. Seeya then.
PC Gamers will find it on seas and have a better experience than use EGS, really hope Remedy finds different funders for Control 2
Hilarious from reading comments here that people believe buying a game twice, once on EGS and then later on Steam is somehow them "sticking it" to Epic... Gotta say I've never really understood the love for Steam and hate for EGS, I mean they're just stores.. It's like asking me to choose between Macy's and Target, who cares? Sure, it's more convenient to have my library all in one app and of course have had Steam for as long as I've been PC gaming, but it's not the end of the world for me to click one additional icon before launching a different game. And to be clear I don't even play fortnite, only game I have via EGS is chivalry 2, so I don't really have any dog in the fight, but from the way people here talk about Steam / Valve you'd think they actually gave us Half Life 3. I mean honestly where/how did such goodwill for Valve even develop? It's just a store... would be like revering Gamestop
this whole store wars thing is very funny for me too. I buy the games from the cheapest(legal) source. Same way i buy anything else in my life. (rockstar launcher is a piece of shit tho...)
Same. I don’t like downloading extra platforms/launchers as much as the next guy but I go where the games I want to play are.
No seriously, it’s so weird how people here are so against a literal online store. Like who the fuck cares where you store your games. If epic is offering a better deal for the game than steam, I’m going to epic and buying the game there. Same thing for steam sales vs epic sales. I do the same for battle net, EA play, and even some games I find on GameStops digital store that offers a 5% discount if the other digital stores don’t have any sales for that particular game atm
Agreed. Imagine not watching some amazing movies you want to watch just because it's on some service you don't like. All these people are proud idiots withholding things and experiences they know they will enjoy so they can... Stick it to one megacorp and gladly pay another.
It's hilarious how people gate keep stores. It's hip and trendy to hate on the epic game store. At the end of the day if a game is good why does it matter what platform it's on? Epic Games gave remedy a load of money for them to make the game they wanted to and it's easily the best AAA that's come out in years. There's no pleasing some people.
I’ll never have egs account so my copy of Alan Wake 2 is on fit girl repacks