News Epic Games Store




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well he's technically correct as of right now :smart-thinking-blob:

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It's funny how he claims EGS is profitable, while ignoring the costs of the cashbacks and free games.

Anyway, usually I'd applaud any company improving their PC efforts. But I have no doubt that Epic will resume money hatting 3rd party games as soon as EGS gets a decent marketshare. Let's hope they never achieve this.
 
I will say this, at the very least Steve Allison isn't a dumbass like Tim. He seems to realize that you can catch more flies with honey, unlike Sweeney who thought that you can make the entire PC gaming communtiy hate you and then herd them to your store like cattle.
They need to do a lot more to compensate all the years of bullshit that I had to hear from their mouth since EGS has been a thing on PC
Actually what I could agree with at this point is only an announcement of the closure of this turd that they call store
Allison has been GM of the EGS since the inception of it, so he's just another guy that actually was part of all of the shit they said and did in the last 5 years or so.
 
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The addition of forums represents a shift in approach. Back in 2019, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said that the Epic Games Store would not have its own message boards, and encouraged developers to link to external forums.

At the time, Epic also opted not to emulate Steam features like user reviews, presenting its launcher as a light-touch intermediary between developers and players more than a destination in itself. Epic's account system is a good example of that philosophy: Unlike the Steamworks API, which only lets games interface with Steam's social features, Epic's Online Services can connect players across platforms and stores.

That interest in interoperability hasn't been abandoned, but Epic is now open to building a more active community within its launcher, with limits that keep its approach distinct from Valve's.

In the case of user reviews, Epic introduced a system in 2022 that asks random users who've played a game for more than two hours to assign it a star rating. Allison says the system has been "fairly bulletproof" as a way to include player ratings without allowing review bombing.

"The brigading that happens on the Steam platform against games, when they do things like cap a frame rate at 30 frames or whatever, that can turn a game's commercial outcomes upside down, that's something we want to not be able to facilitate," he said.

Steam has introduced features to mitigate review bombing, such as identifying surges in "off-topic" reviews, though the ability to collectively express anger via a mass thumbs-downing is no doubt something some Steam users would say they like about the platform. The moderation of Steam's forums and user groups is also notoriously lax.

Epic may never cater to users who want a free-for-all, but Allison says they know that more social features are desired, and they're going to build them.

"Right now, the first thing we're going to explore is adding a forum and using our trust and safety team to moderate the forums," said Allison. "But we're open to all that stuff now. We still have issues with and believe that those things [such as review bombing] need to be mitigated, but it's on us to figure it out."

Sounds like the EGS social features will be a sanitized version of Steam's. Fortnite has had forums for awhile and they're nothing special.

As an aside, I really never got the complaints the Steam forums were some Nazi infested hellhole. Sure you had clown farmings saying dumb things about games being woke, but Stormfront it ain't.

Not really. Hoyo have their own launcher for their games. I dare say most people play their games through that instead of the EGS so they can't really be called exclusive.
I think in that context, "exclusive" just means "not on Steam".
 
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I think when people say Steam's forums are a nazi-ridden hellhole, what they're actually saying is when that shit appears Valve won't touch it, for better or worse.

I'm not actually sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, Steam is private property and Valve has a right to say what is and isn't allowed on their property, so maybe they should clamp down on it? On the other, I don't like private companies dictating what speech is or isn't allowed. We've seen private companies come after leftist speech for decades, through various means, so I have a natural aversion to companies dictating the terms of conversation in any way.

At the same time, nazis are rats and they should be treated as such. I think as a society we should be far more intolerant of them in the same way we're intolerant of murder and paedophilia (both things the far right is neck deep in, by the by). I just don't think private companies should be judge, jury and executioner on that.
 
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I think when people say Steam's forums are a nazi-ridden hellhole, what they're actually saying is when that shit appears Valve won't touch it, for better or worse.

I'm not actually sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, Steam is private property and Valve has a right to say what is and isn't allowed on their property, so maybe they should clamp down on it? On the other, I don't like private companies dictating what speech is or isn't allowed. We've seen private companies come after leftist speech for decades, through various means, so I have a natural aversion to companies dictating the terms of conversation in any way.

At the same time, nazis are rats and they should be treated as such. I think as a society we should be far more intolerant of them in the same way we're intolerant of murder and paedophilia (both things the far right is neck deep in, by the by). I just don't think private companies should be judge, jury and executioner on that.
On steam, each forum part of each game is moderated by the people behind the game if Im not mistaken? In that case I think valve should for the most part of hands off. That said forums are a nazi shithole either way that needs a solution. The bigger problem on steam is also so much over nazi, like groups, profiles and so on, which I do think valve does something about when it has been reported on enough
 
I wonder where EGS would be now, if they launched with the following (however impractical/implausible, let's assume Epic's billions and engineering talent would be capable of it):

  • no paid third party exclusives
  • come out of the gate with fully featured client that matches (or exceeds) Steam on features AND offers nicer design/visual experience
  • EGS version of GOG-connect letting people redeem their steam libraries on EGS for free
  • lower prices on Epic through cashbacks or whatnot
  • free games

Basially, if they didn't poison the well from the outset, pissing off core PC audience, and instead brought high quality competition. What would their market share spend be today?

At the same time, nazis are rats and they should be treated as such.
Agreed, and same goes for commies. Nazis raped my country for 6 years, commies raped it for 40 years.
But, I still don't want Valve to censor. Developers can moderate their subforums already and that should be enough. Everyone can set (and enforce) their own rules.
 
I re-read that Kotaku interview and this:

“They’re like 140 million, not sure exactly, because of how much bot traffic they have, but it’s still significant. It’s close to double, and we’re at that level,”

Is implying Steam's MAU has only grown 8 million in 4 years and Valve is running a massive botnet. Is he full of shit? (Yes, yes he is).

I wonder where EGS would be now, if they launched with the following (however impractical/implausible, let's assume Epic's billions and engineering talent would be capable of it):

  • no paid third party exclusives
  • come out of the gate with fully featured client that matches (or exceeds) Steam on features AND offers nicer design/visual experience
  • EGS version of GOG-connect letting people redeem their steam libraries on EGS for free
  • lower prices on Epic through cashbacks or whatnot
  • free games

Basially, if they didn't poison the well from the outset, pissing off core PC audience, and instead brought high quality competition. What would their market share spend be today?


Agreed, and same goes for commies. Nazis raped my country for 6 years, commies raped it for 40 years.
But, I still don't want Valve to censor. Developers can moderate their subforums already and that should be enough. Everyone can set (and enforce) their own rules.
If Epic had focused on user features and Fortnite collabs from day 1 instead of exclusives and Tim Sweeney crying on Twitter, they would have that 30-40% market share they want. I have no idea why they waited over 7 years to go all in to Fortnite bonuses especially as the game was at its peak in 2019-2020 and is declining today (primarily as battle royales are just plain old and their metaverse has been a dud).

Also 2019 was a bad year for Valve as big pubs were dropping Steam, their first party games were stagnating and Fortnite was the hot new thing in town and Epic could have easily converted millions of zoomers into loyal EGS customers with a plethora of collabs. Epic sat on their asses for years and let Valve run away with a massive lead.
 
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He's just doing some more sensible PR speak than Tim when putting his foot in his mouth, the underlying messaging and goals are the same regardless really.

Story time; Just over a decade ago telecom was a vibrant industry in my country. Every state had multiple telecom companies vying to be your mobile phone service provider. They actually used to compete with each other and that was very beneficial for consumers. Around that time, one the of the richest men in the world decided that he wanted a piece of this pie. His company spent tons of money setting up infrastructure, towers and laying optical fibres across the nation. Then they launched their network with an offer... anybody who switches to this new network gets free mobile phone services and data for 3 years. People wouldn't have to pay a phone bill for 3 whole years! Hundreds of millions of people shifted over. The smaller companies couldn't do anything to counter this. How do you compete with an ultra rich company that is willing to run at a loss for years on end? You just can't. And so, one by one, they all got acquired, merged or folded until we reached the current scenario where there are only 3 major telecom companies left in the market. One of those 3 (Vodafone) is in a deep financial hole that they will never get out of. And now those 3 companies operate as a cartel. They all have the exact same pricing and plans. If one company announces a prike hike in the morning, the other two companies will have matched it by the end of the day. Now telecom prices are much higher than they used to be and normal people have no choices left.

The telecom regulatory authority should have stepped in and blocked this kind of predatory pricing when that network first launched. But of course, that organization is run by the government which has politicians who are bought and paid for.

The point here is that a company that is willing to burn money and run at a loss for years is an extremely dangerous thing.

The fact that Valve has survived it for this long doesn't mean the problem is irrelevant. Epic didn't spend billions to have a 6% marketshare. They are continuing to run at a loss because, while their strategy and messaging has changed, their goal has not. They absolutely want to crush Steam and they are still trying to find out how they can do it. My gut feeling is that Valve got really lucky by not responding or retaliating to the actions Epic took at the start of this all. I genuinely think that if Valve had done anything to counter Epic's moves, Tim would have had a lawsuit ready and waiting to go accusing them of abusing a monopoly position.

Someone wondered why all this EGS coverage is starting up now. I can't help but wonder if it's linked to that UK lawsuit that has just started against Valve. I also wonder who is actually funding that lawsuit and wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being Tim. And unless you want to believe all game journalists independently contacted Epic to get these interviews at same time, it's pretty obvious that Epic has reached out to get this coverage. This feels like yet another co-ordinated attack designed to influence people who don't follow this stuff closely and the stupids who do but believe that "all competition is good no matter what!".
 
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The UK lawsuit is being handled by Milberg which is a firm that has offices in the US and UK. They have a list of outstanding cases on their UK website and are suing Sony for nearly the same thing as Valve.

As for the Wolfire lawsuit, they're being represented by Constantine Cannon while Epic used Cravath, Swaine & Moore for the Apple and Google trials. You can question how Wolfire has been able to find funding for 5 years, but that's getting a bit into conspiracy territory.

I think it's safe to say Tim isn't funding any of these lawsuits, but he wouldn't be unhappy if Valve lost. Also as an aside, Tim has mentioned Sony having price parity clauses as well when speaking under oath, but hasn't dared to criticize them for it on Twitter.