Okay, Yea Forums, roleplay time.
People hate Epic Game Store for paying for exclusivity.
Imagine you are in Epic Game Store's position. What would you do to make your online games launcher a success against Steam without paying publishers for game exclusivity?
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Add the features that steam has had for years like a search bar.
They already have a large enough customer base from Fortnite, they don't need to hold games hostage to be a success
Honestly I don't know. Maybe just stop at giving devs/publishers a larger cut of sales when compared to Steam. Over time, and as more people start using the launcher, devs will prefer to sell through your store. Use the profit to improve and streamline the user's experience
Share all the same core features as Steam including shit like a good search system. Then pull a GoG and have randomly timed but ridiculously good flash sales all the time - this allowed both Steam and GoG to make a lot of money. Since it's by Epic, make an Unreal Engine 4 workshop integration to make modding UE4 games on the EGS much easier to do to give an incentive to actually USE it over Steam and its workshop.
>Add the features that steam has had for years like a search bar.
The search bar is the weirdest complaint. They had like a dozen games, you don't need a search bar until you reach a certain size that you can't put everything on the front page.
I imagine it was a deliberate design decision to omit it, not because it wasn't designed.
>step 1 aquire fornite money
>step 2 spend that money on making a store and cilent that's better than steam
>Step 3 stop spending money on stupid indie devs that are probably going to put their game on their anyways and spend it on people like EA and Activision so they put their games on there
>Step 4 have a store with all the games that steam and more in addition to having all the features steam has plus more
Giving a larger cut alone is not enough as Steam lets publishers give them away keys for free, so you're competing with other online stores like Humble/GMG/Fanatical/Voidu etc.
Why wouldn't I need a search bar? Can I ctrl f to what I need on the page? Or do I gotta scroll to find
What specific features would make it "better than Steam"? That's the problem. An online store is little more than a way of taking payment, providing downloads and delivering patches.
Meanwhile, Steam has all the users, all the games and all the developers.
>>Step 3 stop spending money on stupid indie devs that are probably going to put their game on their anyways and spend it on people like EA and Activision so they put their games on there
They have already paid Ubisoft and Take Two, the other other big multiplat publishers.
I would crash the launcher with no survivors and do as much internal damage as I could to the companies internal assets, including release any potential evidence of criminal activity to the public. I would keep going regardless of how much trouble I got in by the end of it.
I will not make backroom deals with communist super companies, nor would I happily work under their North Carolina lap dogs.
That hardly seems relevant. How often are publishers giving away Steam keys to their users? How often do users recieve Steam keys from any game?
I think for Epic to be competetive, they simply need to offer a comparable service. Larger profits for publishers will, over time, cause publishers to prefer Epic. The majority will still continue to sell through both, but some will prefer one over the other. This is the ideal scenario from a user's perspective.
Because if you can scroll down and find any title in 30 seconds, it's quicker than searching?
How sad and pointless would it be to have a search bar for a dozen things?
Not anything with my boys tencent having 48% of their shares.Tencent even has shares on ubisoft albeit much less
I would attack before discord was a thing by making a chat program that don't require a mobile phone to sign your friends up to it, and gobble the skype audience.
Then use my big company to put games to sell on it with all the features you expect from steam.
Then i would offer the less than 30% rate but not make any game exclusive to the platform.
Pretty sure I read something like a third to half of all sales come from 3rd party sites, but it kills any chance of trying to compete on price to price-sensitive customers.
A "comparable service" isn't enough. Why would any users move from an existing service which has a bigger userbase and more titles to a "comparable service"? It's not like GOG has set the world on fire.
But why. I don't wanna play where's Wally just to buy a game. Lemmie search.
I would keep adding exclusives because it's obviously working with how well they're reporting selling.
discounts, no drm, more games including old games, timed 2/3 month exclusives like gog,mod support, achievements, reviews, some sort of forum
>1) Provide a BETTER service
>2) Pass the savings that the devs make directly to customers
Instead, they're being as corrupt the rest of chinese business, and they have absolutely no intention of sticking around long term.
I would've paid them to lower the prices of their games by like 25% instead of paying for exclusivity. I think the majority of people would buy on Epic if they were getting a $15-20 discount on every game.
That's fair, but GOG doesn't offer a comparable service because of its smaller library. If both Steam and Epic had comparable user services and library selections, yes, I do believe people would switch launchers to whichever they prefer more. This, in my mind, is healthy competition. From here, each store would compete for users by offering better prices or services.
That being said, I would likely stick with Steam if both stores were comparable simply because I use it for many games.
Stop buying exclusives and start making exclusives.
If you purchased the IPs to beloved, but dead franchises and then bring them back from the dead people will love you.
An exclusive is okay if you make it/fund it from scratch. Nobody faults Valve for having Counter-Strike steam exclusive. They made it.
GoG actually makes almost nothing which is why I don't think just offering a comparable service is enough to compete with Steam.
>What would you do to make your online games launcher a success against Steam without paying publishers for game exclusivity?
I'd probably stop attacking consumers, stop trying to shift power from them to developers. I'd get the barebone shit the store should had from the start, like a cart. Apply a little common sense, which is apparently not common for Tim, must be the down syndrome.
>Over time, and as more people start using the launcher, devs will prefer to sell through your store.
that does nothing to incentivise people to buy through that store, and if you only offer it in the one store but not the other, people will resent you for it, rightfully.
>1) Provide a BETTER service
>2) Pass the savings that the devs make directly to customers
>I'd probably stop attacking consumers, stop trying to shift power from them to developers.
what kind of looney-talk is that?
Finally some sense being said
+2 social credit
No-one cares about mods, user. You think people do but the audience is tiny.
>Cheaper prices
>Incentives (reward card etc.)
>Trading cards without the need to keep putting money into completing them
One of my major gripes is how Steam presents itself as pro-consumer while Epic presents itself as pro-developer.
>. I'd get the barebone shit the store should had from the start, like a cart
But Epic doesn't have 50 games yet. Who is buying multiple things at once? It's the same reason Steam took forever to implement a cart - it's utterly irrelevant until you reach a certain point.
The audience is tiny due to a lack of accessibility. Modding a lot of games is a complicated process for the much more mundane user - implementing straightforward drag-and-drop/1-click solutions that are also officially endorsed tends to result in more popular use of mods. It happened with Steam Workshop and it happened with the Creation Club.
Epic Game Store decided to focus on developers rather than end-users because Valve treats developers like utter shit and does the absolute bare minimum while taking a huge fee.
Even the console manufacturers are better to developers than Valve.
"Lack of accessibility?" No, the problem is half-baked amateur custom content aimed at is always going to be aimed at a fringe hardcore audience.
That applies whether you're talking Train Sim or Skyrim.
>Valve treats developers like utter shit and does the absolute bare minimum while taking a huge fee.
I get I'm coming across as a spoiled child here but I'm not a developer
I don't give a shit how Valve treats you, They treat me well so I like their service.
I don't think Valve are even as bad as people keep making out, They give devs almost full creative country over their game which is more than can be said for Nintendo, Microsoft and more predominant as of late Sony.
Does it have an issue with discoverability? Absolutely but I feel that's more down to the devs to market their game more.
Match Steam in features, and knock an additional 10% off all new releases over whatever Steam offers.
Compete with Steam in a way that actually benefits users? Features, price etc. It's not fucking rocket science.
Probably cause I can type the name of the game in less than 30 seconds.
>Features
People are repeatedly being abstract about these mythical "features" that Epic can introduce to get people to use them over Steam.
THEY LITERALLY DON'T EXIST YOU TARDS.
buy console exclusives, if they announced this on the epic store tomorrow i fucking GUARANTEE you that 99.9% of Yea Forums would jump ship
Workshop? Cloud Saves? A wide variety of cheap key sources? A store that actually has a cart?
I hope you are Chinese because otherwise you would just be retarded
The issue is solely exclusivity. It's a publisher's responsibility to promote their game regardless of where they're sold. Walmart doesn't market their shit, they charge them for endcaps and flags because competitors also want more exposure for their releases.
If the publisher want's the extra 18% at the cost of the customer they can voluntarily release it on EGS at the risk. They can promote EGS symbiotically by offering special features. They can publicize that EGS is their preferred transaction service because of the extra 18% and that EGS will implicitly allow for more games and better ones (of course that's wrong).
Better to have it now and not need it than need it later but not have it
As a consumer, I fucking hate Steam but I'm forced to use it due to its ubiquity,
Valve utterly fucked gaming. They were pioneers in loot boxes, endless patching, zero quality control whatsoever and F2P bullshit.
They always do the absolute bare minimum. Where's Valve's E3 conference? Where are the cool new features? Where are the cool new games they are developing to get people to keep using their platform? Meanwhile, they waste all their time pushing bullshit like "VR", "Steam controller" and "Big Box Mode" on me.
They use income from 1st world buying on a card to subsidise 3rd worlders buying rune cards to justify their cut.
VAC is fucking spyware.
Steam doesn't even have proper patch notes for fucks sake.
Their controller support is fucking broken. Let me disable your on-screen keyboard. I have an Xinput controller, don't suck me into your retarded bullshit by hijacking it.
Their store prices are consistently fucking terrible. £50 for a new game? Fuck off.
They constantly push Steamworks to entrench their lock-in - including their controller, then wonder why no fucker uses it as it has no Origin or Battle.net support.
Their client is an ugly fucking mess that has got worse with every major update. They are also incredibly slow to add features - let me filter my fucking library, you assholes.
Their forums and reviews have sucked most content away from all other sources into a black hole.
Their "social features" are a fucking virus, which is why everyone moved onto Discord.
Fuck Valve. Useless middle-man that sucks up literal billions while contributing fucking nothing. They are a cancer on gaming that keeps on growing while slowly killing its host.
I much prefer the consoles or even fucking Origin nowadays. They are the worst "platform" owner by fucking miles.
Why would I not buy exclusivity?
It clearly works, the launcher costs nothing after all, so all I need is to entice people to download it for free. Why not lure devs in with promises of better profit margins?
Attempt to do at least one thing better than Steam, work from there.
Throwing money around to force people to use your sub standard launcher shows how little faith they have in their product. The tens of millions they spent on forced exclusivity could have been spent making their launcher better.
Use the bribing money to sell games for cheaper+ try to match steam features quicker.
>It's a publisher's responsibility to promote their game regardless of where they're sold
Publishers and developers resent paying Valve 30% of their cut for something that costs a fraction of that to provide without getting any additional benefits.
That's the reality.
Valve could make that up a lot of that difference with additional marketing support on their platform, and better community outreach. But they don't. They easily could, but they are stubborn and refuse. If anything, they do the opposite - flood their store with low-quality junk and put promotion down to an "algorithm" that they have designed that they refuse to provide details about.
Would it kill Valve to fix their store design to improve exposure, do a big press conference every now and then, support in distribution of marketing materials to stores, and work on improving partnerships with big publishers? Yes, apparently it would when they can sit on their ass and do nothing.
And that was the story of how Valve lost almost all major publishers.
>Imagine you are in Epic Game Store's position. What would you do to make your online games launcher a success against Steam without paying publishers for game exclusivity?
Add nice features that steam doesn't offer instead of taking away games I wanted to play on better platforms.
Either way, I'm not going to use Epic.
Steam, itch.io and GoG are all I'll ever need.
Epic would basically have to buy one of those out
>Add nice features that steam doesn't offer instead of taking away games I wanted to play on better platforms.
Such as?
If developers are falling over themselves to get the better cut that not a single user gives a fuck about, why are so many still releasing via Steam?
The paid exclusivity shouldn't be necessary if the different in storefront cut matters as much as the shills try to imply it does.
Market dominance, as that's where the users are. You think manufacturers love Wal-Mart, Amazon and eBay?
Everyone is trying to dump it if they feel they can. Notch was years ahead of everyone in not giving up a 30% cut.
I'm not doing Epic's market research for them.
Its not fucking hard, you guys already stole all of the usage data, just look at the features people like to use.
It's because those features literally don't exist.
I guess it will always be a mystery then, Epic must be considered a worse launcher as a result of systemic oppression. Developers need to rise up and show the world that they don't need to please their customers.
Dude what the fuck are you talking about?
Each game in a library has a news feed with all sorts of promotional shit. Each game has a community feed and a forum on Steam. Developers have their own store pages that list their whole catalogues. Their store pages have a newsfeed on them and can be changed for promotional content. When games get updates they get listed on the front page, and they even include wishlist games.
They're even working on this shit to further integrate dev-consumer interfacing into the library. They announced this at their GDC conference. Exposure is fine, people I know check new released frequently, it's at the bottom of the never ending promotional shit at the top pages that constantly rotates updated games and curated lists, and new releases and deals.
Here's a timestamped Youtube about all the new UX features:
youtu.be
Fucking faggot.
>Each game in a library has a news feed with all sorts of promotional shit.
Which isn't promotion.
>Each game has a community feed and a forum on Steam.
Which isn't marketing, as it sells pretty much zero games, and is designed to entrench Steam lock-in.
>Developers have their own store pages that list their whole catalogues.
Which isn't marketing, as it sells pretty much zero games, and is designed to entrench Steam lock-in.
>Their store pages have a newsfeed on them and can be changed for promotional content.
Which only works if you know about the game.
>When games get updates they get listed on the front page
They do. And we all know games that receive more patches are better products, right? So if you release a retail-ready AAA game, you get punished over early-access and MTX-ridden crap. This is Steam is encouraging developers to release broken games.
>and they even include wishlist games.
What?
>They're even working on this shit to further integrate dev-consumer interfacing into the library. They announced this at their GDC conference.
They've been developing this for literally years, you know that right? Let me know hwen it's released.
>Exposure is fine, people I know check new released frequently, it's at the bottom of the never ending promotional shit at the top pages that constantly rotates updated games and curated lists, and new releases and deals.
It really isn't. "New Releases" is buried near the bottom of the site, they've had to fix new releases to remove the trash, and the "never ending promotional shit" doesn't not work because it's a solitary carousel. And Valve's recommendation algorithm is fucked.
The reality is Steam is worse for discovery than it was 10 years ago.
Fun-fact: their hand-curated "special offers" is the only bit that works. Everyone kills themselves to get in that section. Valve knows this, and they use this to push for discounts. Which proves that curation works and that Valve's algorithm doesn't work.
I love how Steam-fags assume that if you aren't some raving Steam fanboy then you just don't use it and don't understand the brilliance of it.
My Steam account is over 10 years old and has over 2000 games. I've been PC gaming for about 25 years.
The reality is that if you just buy and play games, there is no major difference between any platform, PC or console, in 2019. It's not 2009 anymore. The only possible exception is Windows Store because of the usual Microsoft bullshit.
Origin is a bit slow, the online Xbox store is as confusing as shit and Steam constantly tries to get your attention with irrelevant bullshit (fuck off trading cards) and has always had clunky, confusing and ugly design, but otherwise they're all fine.
All I want is something to download, launch and patch games and they all fucking do that nowadays. Everything else is fucking bullshit.
>I'm a Steamfag
>oh, also Epic is fine and Steam is worthless because even though it has a billion useful features, trading cards make the rest obselete
Make my own games that are exclusives
Epic has infinite money due to Fortnite.
Appeal to niches that AAA are fucking up like WRPGs and mecha games
>imagine you're a freedom-hating chink trying to steal data from everyone worldwide
hm....i'd probably add more Pooh games.