During E3 2019, it had been quietly revealed that Shenmue III would be headed to the Epic Games Store for PC, as an exclusive. This contrasted with what had been initially promised to Kickstarter backers--a Steam key--which resulted in controversy and confusion as to how things would play out for those who paid for the game and requested a digital PC copy. When it was announced that backers would be unable to request a refund, things became even more contentious. Aiming to calm the masses, a message from the Shenmue III development team noted that the Ys Net and Deep Silver would be looking into how best to work the situation out. Now, after a few weeks, it appears that the team has come up with a solution.

Those who backed the game get one of four options:

• a. PC Physical: Package (Disc) ＋ EGS Key
• b. PC Digital: EGS Key
• c. PS4 Physical: Package (Disc)
• d. PS4 Digital: PSN Voucher Code

For those that choose the PC option, you'll get a copy of the game on the Epic Game Store, but you'll also receive a Steam key as well, which will arrive exactly one year post-launch. Backers can also switch their platform to PS4, if they no longer wish to have the game on PC.

Most importantly, refunds will now be allowed, if none of the above choices suit you.

Source

 

[Silent_Gunner]

I know everyone is talking about getting refunds and all that, but can I just say how ugly and not-Ryo/Shen Hua or whatever the girl's name in the second one is (who shows up in the first but never appears in front of Ryo's face in the actual campaign) look here? Like, I remember seeing earlier images for the KS and Shen Hua actually looked like she did in the original games years ago. Here, she just looks like a different person, like they had to recast an actor or something.

Not to mention, Ryo looks...derpy. There's no other way to put it! He has that cross-eye thing going on, and it's crazy! Like, I was skeptical myself of this game, don't get me wrong, but in between everything from the lofty promises, being told that this game wouldn't be the finale that people have been waiting for (like there's ever gonna be a full-fledged Shenmue 4 after this shit that Yu and Deep Silver are pulling! Anyone else remember Deep Silver backing Mighty No. 9 and that it had nothing to do with ROTN? IDK, I don't see a pattern here. /s), and the assets that look...unfinished. I know, "this is not representative of the final product," but that's just the point: usually, you show a trailer off of the things that you want people to be excited for. Can you imagine if Sega showed off the difference between the Saturn and DC versions when the Saturn version was cancelled, and said that what you're seeing of the DC version isn't representative of the final product? It'd look goofy!

I know IGA did this with Bloodstained (tried the Switch port after completing the game on PC via GOG, the alternative to Steam that I'd personally support over the fucking EGS, and hooo boi...), but he was adamant in saying that this is more how they make levels and it came off as more legitimate given this is a guy who's been forced to deal with smaller budget games and make something good out of it even if the finished result ends up using a lot of assets that date back to Rondo Of Blood.

With Shenmue III, maybe it's because I haven't seen much of the later updates, but it looks like your mostly in that village or another village like the one Ryo meets Shen Hua in Shenmue II. That's not very impressive, and if it were any other game than Shenmue, I would tell myself that there's probably more on the way, but based on what I've played of Shenmue I, (I never played Shenmue II outside of running the PAL version on a DC emulator just for benchmarking purposes in terms of DC emulation on a craptop of mine a long time ago), it wouldn't surprise me if you only have one or two main hub areas in the game, with a lot of boring training Ryo would have to do (which raises the question: how the fuck is anyone gonna transfer their save from Shenmue 1 and 2 to 3 for those Mass Effect-esque training stats to carry over, not to mention items from the previous games) while waiting for things to happen, missing other things happening while you go do another thing, getting Virtua Fighter bobbleheads from vending machines to pass the time, etc.. Like, it's unique with the real time mechanic that you can't slow down or speed up in any way in how it tries to be "realistic" with time passing, but when the game series that takes ideas from your original game that a lot of the team that worked on the former game "series" (if it can even be called that) goes and improves on everything the previous two released games at the time did back in the day, and then goes on to get several sequels, spin-offs, movies, TV shows, etc., you know that no one's going to look back on Shenmue outside of being a glorified prototype for the Yakuza games!

 

[Silent_Gunner]

Is this the same line of thought that led to that kinect thing the other year?

It wasn't just the paranoia, though. People just didn't want to pay an extra $100 for the damn thing when the XB1 launched. After an entire year of M$ being all, "you don't like Always Online? Buy a 360 HURR DURR! What's that, a major employee of ours is defending Always Online by being an asshole to critics, thus making Sony look even better after their strategically planned sharing games ad? Psh, we have the Kinect 2.0, because it will make the experience with Xbox One so much better with better detection of when you're in the room, recognize your voice, and allow you to control the TV experience just fine! Games? Of course it's a game system! What, don't you guys have brains?"

Like, Microsoft was just being an asshat that entire year much the same way Sony was going into the PS3. Will history repeat itself with the Sony going into the PS5? IDK, I honestly don't care outside of buying a PS5 for newer exclusive games and the PS4 backwards compatibility provided that Spine and Orbital don't produce impressive results. I have never really got into Microsoft's gaming platform because FPS and their few exclusive offerings that aren't nowadays have never appealed to yours truly. At least, back in the day, they had Ninja Gaiden and some other stuff other than FPSes like Fable and a few others, but it always felt like everything they offered was already on PC in one form or another, usually with better graphics, controls, the works. Either way, if I remember the part about Kinect 2.0 waking up when you enter the room, yeah, I could see why some people, especially nowadays with how much politics has become interwoven with how we interact with each other on the main social media pages, are getting scared of people spying on them. We already know the main social media networks do it. With how much Microsoft and Sony are becoming echo chambers much like certain college campuses in ways not unlike what was shown on many a YT video in 2016, you're telling me they ain't gonna start logging everything you say and do for when the "Community and Diversity Manager" and their underlings scan what you say, they won't try to ban your account and all purchases you've made up to that point? Really?

I'm normally not the untrusting type, but with how certain people have been "de-platformed" or have lost access to money they worked hard for because some card carrier didn't like what they said, you can't not tell me we aren't entering a world akin to that of 1984, 30+ years later? I know, "but some of those speakers were extremists!" And? Should the 1st Amendment become null and void just because someone got "triggered" that you aren't embracing Everything You Learn and Conform to In College That's Totally Applicable To the Real World 101 like a puppet? Does the Federal government, either explicitly or implicitly, need to do everything in peoples' lives to help them live when people need to be individually responsible not just for themselves, but for those around them who'd become swayed by actual extremists to help them make sure they don't fall into something that's actually extreme and dangerous not only to themselves, but for those around them? Fact is, people are becoming more attracted to extreme solutions after years of being encouraged to be PC as opposed speaking their mind. People want to actually say what's on their mind, which often times isn't as extreme as people like to make it out to be. Yes, there's always going to be that Boomer who says something dated, but what can you honestly expect? With my parents, they associate long hair (which they define as going slightly over the ears, blame Independent Fundamental Baptist culture on that) with the Hippies because that's what they remember from when they were teenagers. They know how to do the basics with a computer and the like, and they're helpful and open minded in spite of their associations and the way they can act at times, but the moment one of them says something like, "women should stay at home while the man goes earns the bread" they're associated with the likes of Steven Anderson, the Duggars, and their crowds when my parents are nothing at all like either?

My point is, in this Internet age, where everyone is fed opinions, hot takes, and stories that may or may not present all of the facts truthfully or dishonestly, you can't truly claim to know everything and have good enough judgement, individual Internet denizens, about everything when a lot of the companies, agencies, and other organizations that feed you all of this information are working for only one group's benefit at the end of the day: themselves. So weigh everything, ask tough questions that demand honesty and integrity, don't just take everything laying down, because when you don't, we get shit like Diablo Immortal, Mighty No. 9, Shenmue III in this state, the XB1 (which doesn't even have a library of "exclusives" (whatever the fuck that means in this industry in 2019) to fall back on like the PS3 did in the 7th generation of consoles) the PS3 from 2006-2010, Facebook spying on people, and other things some of us tech users don't want or care for.

 

[Glyptofane]

How is it a bigger deal in other industries, it's still money exchanged for a product.

Great and simple point. This is all that needs to be said about it really.

Oops, quoted the wrong post. I meant your one about false advertising.

 

[FAST6191]

Why? Why do people need to "sell you" on them? Other people find value enough in them for it to be noted as a problem with the Epic launcher for them. Why can't you just accept you place a different value on them to others? Instead of constantly "tell me why" just so you can say "easily replicated" not a big deal.




Really? Still. After people constantly telling you why. You are a still at a loss? Really? Sure disagree with their reasons, claim it's not a big deal, but still at loss, really?



Not just gog. Who sells digital stuff and permits you to resell then?

Not just "they can't stop me" because it's drm free, who actually lets you sell it properly then. So you sell it and lose access to the original, same as selling a physical copy.

If they manage to sell me on the virtues of Steam then they have the good feelings that come along with changing someone's mind or whatever. Are we not into rather metaphysical concepts at this point? Failing that forums, kind of noted for having discussions on them.
I happily accept I place a different value on things (tools, time and talent and all that), but I want to understand the position of others and asking why and can we get some reasoning/justifications for such mindsets is kind of how that is done. As far as I can see though most of the things are trivially replicated by extant technologies that don't even require so much as a hex editor to install and configure.

People have provided me with reasons. I have yet to find any especially good though, or at least warranting of the position many find themselves in. At one point it was noted that Epic's CEO is a raging arsehole but so is every CEO and we seem to get along OK with things anyway. To go all pitchforks and torches over that, and the reasons thus far provided, seems a bit strange, as do the other reasons thus far provided. Maybe someone really does get such great value out of Steam trading cards and had talked about how they were that they are now disappointed not being able to (initially?) enjoy it.

I probably should also refer back to the earlier comment wherein I noted that that the "I'm at a loss", "explain," "tell me why", "sell me on a concept" type phrasing is an attempt to get people to think through why they hold the positions they do. It might be like when we debate religious types and "you will never get the hardcore" but if the as yet undecided get to see other lines of though then I am OK with that. That said I truly am at a loss for why you seemingly find this style of phrasing so infuriating.

On the final bit no idea about what, if any, otherwise DRM free game sellers allowing resale in their enforceable T&Cs. Still don't find it especially relevant, though "lose access" might be something of a red herring -- just the same as I can dump my copy of barbie horse adventures and sell it on tomorrow then one can presumably... fail to destroy a copy of the installer. While I am quite content with the honour system I imagine the most likely iteration (unless we experience some kind of free the MP3s moment again) will be some kind of ledger, though it does not have to be so. Not where we are going with this one though.

It wasn't just the paranoia, though. People just didn't want to pay an extra $100 for the damn thing when the XB1 launched. After an entire year of M$ being all, "you don't like Always Online? Buy a 360 HURR DURR! What's that, a major employee of ours is defending Always Online by being an asshole to critics, thus making Sony look even better after their strategically planned sharing games ad? Psh, we have the Kinect 2.0, because it will make the experience with Xbox One so much better with better detection of when you're in the room, recognize your voice, and allow you to control the TV experience just fine! Games? Of course it's a game system! What, don't you guys have brains?"

Like, Microsoft was just being an asshat that entire year much the same way Sony was going into the PS3. Will history repeat itself with the Sony going into the PS5? IDK, I honestly don't care outside of buying a PS5 for newer exclusive games and the PS4 backwards compatibility provided that Spine and Orbital don't produce impressive results. I have never really got into Microsoft's gaming platform because FPS and their few exclusive offerings that aren't nowadays have never appealed to yours truly. At least, back in the day, they had Ninja Gaiden and some other stuff other than FPSes like Fable and a few others, but it always felt like everything they offered was already on PC in one form or another, usually with better graphics, controls, the works. Either way, if I remember the part about Kinect 2.0 waking up when you enter the room, yeah, I could see why some people, especially nowadays with how much politics has become interwoven with how we interact with each other on the main social media pages, are getting scared of people spying on them. We already know the main social media networks do it. With how much Microsoft and Sony are becoming echo chambers much like certain college campuses in ways not unlike what was shown on many a YT video in 2016, you're telling me they ain't gonna start logging everything you say and do for when the "Community and Diversity Manager" and their underlings scan what you say, they won't try to ban your account and all purchases you've made up to that point? Really?

I'm normally not the untrusting type, but with how certain people have been "de-platformed" or have lost access to money they worked hard for because some card carrier didn't like what they said, you can't not tell me we aren't entering a world akin to that of 1984, 30+ years later? I know, "but some of those speakers were extremists!" And? Should the 1st Amendment become null and void just because someone got "triggered" that you aren't embracing Everything You Learn and Conform to In College That's Totally Applicable To the Real World 101 like a puppet? Does the Federal government, either explicitly or implicitly, need to do everything in peoples' lives to help them live when people need to be individually responsible not just for themselves, but for those around them who'd become swayed by actual extremists to help them make sure they don't fall into something that's actually extreme and dangerous not only to themselves, but for those around them? Fact is, people are becoming more attracted to extreme solutions after years of being encouraged to be PC as opposed speaking their mind. People want to actually say what's on their mind, which often times isn't as extreme as people like to make it out to be. Yes, there's always going to be that Boomer who says something dated, but what can you honestly expect? With my parents, they associate long hair (which they define as going slightly over the ears, blame Independent Fundamental Baptist culture on that) with the Hippies because that's what they remember from when they were teenagers. They know how to do the basics with a computer and the like, and they're helpful and open minded in spite of their associations and the way they can act at times, but the moment one of them says something like, "women should stay at home while the man goes earns the bread" they're associated with the likes of Steven Anderson, the Duggars, and their crowds when my parents are nothing at all like either?

My point is, in this Internet age, where everyone is fed opinions, hot takes, and stories that may or may not present all of the facts truthfully or dishonestly, you can't truly claim to know everything and have good enough judgement, individual Internet denizens, about everything when a lot of the companies, agencies, and other organizations that feed you all of this information are working for only one group's benefit at the end of the day: themselves. So weigh everything, ask tough questions that demand honesty and integrity, don't just take everything laying down, because when you don't, we get shit like Diablo Immortal, Mighty No. 9, Shenmue III in this state, the XB1 (which doesn't even have a library of "exclusives" (whatever the fuck that means in this industry in 2019) to fall back on like the PS3 did in the 7th generation of consoles) the PS3 from 2006-2010, Facebook spying on people, and other things some of us tech users don't want or care for.

I would not argue that the Xbone launch and run up to it was not a cock up of epic proportions (they were in such an amazing position after the 360 and are only now sort of maybe recovering). However if they were going to sell the kinect 2 then having it on every console was the way to go about it -- mediocre peripheral install base pretty much means mediocre sales of anything that uses it. They failed to sell it, got undercut and failed to read the market well enough on the always on stuff, shot themselves in the foot and decided to give themselves a matching set just for fun with some atrocious marketing, and as a result of all that got justifiably burned hard.

As far as xbox exclusives then the 360, especially the 360 as it stood during it all (eventually between sequels and later ports the PS3 more or less caught up), did really well. I had a thread on the matter a while back.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps3-and-360-exclusives-a-discussion.360416/
Compare the original xbox and the PS2 and no contest for a lot of things unless you were into some fairly specific games, wanted the tippy top non PC versions of something or were content to miss out on a fair bit but still play most of the gameplay styles of the day. Compare the 360 to the PS3 and I would expect most that are not fans of truly mediocre Japanese RPGs to have picked the 360 for most of it, with the only saving aspects being free online for the PS3 (oh happy days) or those people that somehow got along with the PS3 controller better, to say nothing of the hacks the 360 enjoyed throughout its life vs the final gasp of the PS3.

As for the rest then sure seems like some dark times ahead and tech companies have long since departed from the old school hacker ideals that allowed things to rise in the first place. All that said though is it just misplaced mistrust that sees people going after Epic then?

 

[spectral]

If they manage to sell me on the virtues of Steam then they have the good feelings that come along with changing someone's mind or whatever. Are we not into rather metaphysical concepts at this point? Failing that forums, kind of noted for having discussions on them.
I happily accept I place a different value on things (tools, time and talent and all that), but I want to understand the position of others and asking why and can we get some reasoning/justifications for such mindsets is kind of how that is done. As far as I can see though most of the things are trivially replicated by extant technologies that don't even require so much as a hex editor to install and configure.

People have provided me with reasons. I have yet to find any especially good though, or at least warranting of the position many find themselves in. At one point it was noted that Epic's CEO is a raging arsehole but so is every CEO and we seem to get along OK with things anyway. To go all pitchforks and torches over that, and the reasons thus far provided, seems a bit strange, as do the other reasons thus far provided. Maybe someone really does get such great value out of Steam trading cards and had talked about how they were that they are now disappointed not being able to (initially?) enjoy it.

I probably should also refer back to the earlier comment wherein I noted that that the "I'm at a loss", "explain," "tell me why", "sell me on a concept" type phrasing is an attempt to get people to think through why they hold the positions they do. It might be like when we debate religious types and "you will never get the hardcore" but if the as yet undecided get to see other lines of though then I am OK with that. That said I truly am at a loss for why you seemingly find this style of phrasing so infuriating.

On the final bit no idea about what, if any, otherwise DRM free game sellers allowing resale in their enforceable T&Cs. Still don't find it especially relevant, though "lose access" might be something of a red herring -- just the same as I can dump my copy of barbie horse adventures and sell it on tomorrow then one can presumably... fail to destroy a copy of the installer. While I am quite content with the honour system I imagine the most likely iteration (unless we experience some kind of free the MP3s moment again) will be some kind of ledger, though it does not have to be so. Not where we are going with this one though.




I would not argue that the Xbone launch and run up to it was not a cock up of epic proportions (they were in such an amazing position after the 360 and are only now sort of maybe recovering). However if they were going to sell the kinect 2 then having it on every console was the way to go about it -- mediocre peripheral install base pretty much means mediocre sales of anything that uses it. They failed to sell it, got undercut and failed to read the market well enough on the always on stuff, shot themselves in the foot and decided to give themselves a matching set just for fun with some atrocious marketing, and as a result of all that got justifiably burned hard.

As far as xbox exclusives then the 360, especially the 360 as it stood during it all (eventually between sequels and later ports the PS3 more or less caught up), did really well. I had a thread on the matter a while back.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps3-and-360-exclusives-a-discussion.360416/
Compare the original xbox and the PS2 and no contest for a lot of things unless you were into some fairly specific games, wanted the tippy top non PC versions of something or were content to miss out on a fair bit but still play most of the gameplay styles of the day. Compare the 360 to the PS3 and I would expect most that are not fans of truly mediocre Japanese RPGs to have picked the 360 for most of it, with the only saving aspects being free online for the PS3 (oh happy days) or those people that somehow got along with the PS3 controller better, to say nothing of the hacks the 360 enjoyed throughout its life vs the final gasp of the PS3.

As for the rest then sure seems like some dark times ahead and tech companies have long since departed from the old school hacker ideals that allowed things to rise in the first place. All that said though is it just misplaced mistrust that sees people going after Epic then?

They seem to hate every new client as it launches, then they gradually gain more acceptance then everyone moves onto the new thing they hate. People absolutely hated Origin and Uplay with a passion. Many still do.

 

[Bladexdsl]

People absolutely hated Origin and Uplay with a passion. Many still do.

because they are still both garbage

 

[spectral]

because they are still both garbage

Honestly I'd be hard pressed to say whats better about steam now. Steam if anything has become a bloated mess.

 

[SapphireExile]

So many people complaining about EGS as if they're getting paid by Valve to be on Steam.

It's a store. If Steam didn't fuck the little guys, this wouldn't be happening in the first place. Why is it that a AAA studio gets LESS taken from them for selling more? If anything indie games should receive more of the cut.

But everyone wants to be a white knight protecting their platform. You fail to understand that at the core of game development is money.

If your employer took 30% of your entire pay cut, then another company offered you 10% cuts at the same salary, would you stay with the same company? That's what's happening here.

My Steam account is valued around 22k MSRP, yet I still use EGS, uPlay, etc daily.

Game development firms are looking at profit first. But keep trying to protect Steam and bitch about things that mean nothing. So what if a game is an EGS exclusive? Why aren't you bitching at Sony and Microsoft to release their exclusives elsewhere? How about nearly every first party EA game being Origin exclusive, and most third parties?

Just Jesus Christ. This idiocy has gone on long enough. Yes, it's bullshit that the Shenmue devs changed what the promised, and they should be reprimanded, but bitching JUST because it's an EGS exclusive is stupid.

 

[Armadillo]

If they manage to sell me on the virtues of Steam then they have the good feelings that come along with changing someone's mind or whatever. Are we not into rather metaphysical concepts at this point? Failing that forums, kind of noted for having discussions on them.

It's not really a discussion though when it just goes around and around in circles. You ask why people don't like Epic, people tell you, just for you to keep posting "but why".

As far as I can see though most of the things are trivially replicated by extant technologies that don't even require so much as a hex editor to install and configure.

A lot, but not all and certainly not with the convienace and reliablity of Steam. Lets take two that are "easily replicated"

Universal controller support

So you can use any controller you like, rather than just something that is xinput. Can you replicate it, sure, is it as convineant, no.

X360ce
xpadder
DS4windows (something like can't, can't remember the name)
joy2key

Sure some combination will get likely get it working in your game, but it's not guaranteed. Maybe it can't hook the game, why? now you have to troubleshoot that. Maybe there's an incompatablity, again, why? more hassle. Maybe the anti-cheat is blocking it, then you're fucked.

On the other, Steam controller support. Universal, set it up once and it works on every game on steam.

Maybe you don't care about messing around with other shit, but just having it work means a lot to people.

Cloud saves.

Again, sure you can manually back up to where ever. That means:

Find the save for whatever game. Some are in documents, some are in my games, some are in the game folder, others are in the Steam folder. Work out where it is and what's it called, the you can back it up. Now remember to back up your save everytime you finish. Now do it for every game you play and it quickly becomes a big hassle.

Steam.

Launch game, save is backed up when you finish.


Then there is stuff you can't replicate.

Take big picture mode.

Lots of people play on tvs now. You can kill explorer and have the system boot straight into it, just like a console. Steam is also the only storefront with 100% controller support for everything. If you can do it on keyboard/mouse, you can do it on controller. The others stores have limited if any controller support.

You can't replicate that on any other store.

People have provided me with reasons. I have yet to find any especially good though, or at least warranting of the position many find themselves in. At one point it was noted that Epic's CEO is a raging arsehole but so is every CEO and we seem to get along OK with things anyway. To go all pitchforks and torches over that, and the reasons thus far provided, seems a bit strange, as do the other reasons thus far provided. Maybe someone really does get such great value out of Steam trading cards and had talked about how they were that they are now disappointed not being able to (initially?) enjoy it.

Why does it matter if you find the reasons to warrant the position people take? No one is out to convince you.

You ask "why", no reason to think you aren't asking in good faith, you get your answer, just to be at a loss again and then keep asking, because it doesn's satisfy you.

I probably should also refer back to the earlier comment wherein I noted that that the "I'm at a loss", "explain," "tell me why", "sell me on a concept" type phrasing is an attempt to get people to think through why they hold the positions they do. It might be like when we debate religious types and "you will never get the hardcore" but if the as yet undecided get to see other lines of though then I am OK with that. That said I truly am at a loss for why you seemingly find this style of phrasing so infuriating.

People do think it through though. People know why they hold these positions, they tell you, just for you to go back to well you can sort of bodge the same with X, so it doesn't matter. Why do people hate epic. You want others to think it through, but you give Steam features a cursory glance and because you can bodge something that sorta works similar, but not as well, proclaim it's the same.

Infuriating, no. Tiresome yes. Every topic with Epic we get the same old "it's just a launcher, why people mad", hiding it behind "just asking questions and wanting people to think about it" doesn't change it.

On the final bit no idea about what, if any, otherwise DRM free game sellers allowing resale in their enforceable T&Cs. Still don't find it especially relevant, though "lose access" might be something of a red herring -- just the same as I can dump my copy of barbie horse adventures and sell it on tomorrow then one can presumably... fail to destroy a copy of the installer. While I am quite content with the honour system I imagine the most likely iteration (unless we experience some kind of free the MP3s moment again) will be some kind of ledger, though it does not have to be so. Not where we are going with this one though.

It's relevant because ,you wanted to use no reselling as stick to beat Valve with, when it's all digital sellers. Not just valve.

Lose access is releavant, because that's "reselling". Sure with physical you could make a backup and sell it on, but haven't "resold" it in that case, you've made yourself a pirate copy and sold the original. No one would argue that's right.

If all the matters to you is you can resell it and some sort of honour system. Then buy physical steam copies/codes, don't activate and use a cracked copy instead. Your free to "resell" your steam copy then and delete the cracked one afterwards.

Both are basically the same, using your "honour" system, but I think when it comes to Valve that won't satisfy you.

 

[Kioku]

They seem to hate every new client as it launches, then they gradually gain more acceptance then everyone moves onto the new thing they hate. People absolutely hated Origin and Uplay with a passion. Many still do.

Except that's not entirely the case here. It's not because it's a "new launcher".. Personally? I can't care what launchers come out anymore. Everybody wants their piece and that's fine. However, I can not and will not openly support Epic's strong-arm tactics to gain a place in the market. "It's just business" is also another empty defense people throw around. If the Epic store ran better, offered better security and wasn't run by Sweeney? There would be no issue. At that point it'd just be "another launcher" and these arguments would be Moot.

Granted, it seems people here are more set in defending why Steam is the better option. Not why Epic is hurting the gaming community. Maybe that's why I feel out place. Ha!

 

[Silent_Gunner]

It's not really a discussion though when it just goes around and around in circles. You ask why people don't like Epic, people tell you, just for you to keep posting "but why".



A lot, but not all and certainly not with the convienace and reliablity of Steam. Lets take two that are "easily replicated"

Universal controller support

So you can use any controller you like, rather than just something that is xinput. Can you replicate it, sure, is it as convineant, no.

X360ce
xpadder
DS4windows (something like can't, can't remember the name)
joy2key

Sure some combination will get likely get it working in your game, but it's not guaranteed. Maybe it can't hook the game, why? now you have to troubleshoot that. Maybe there's an incompatablity, again, why? more hassle. Maybe the anti-cheat is blocking it, then you're fucked.

On the other, Steam controller support. Universal, set it up once and it works on every game on steam.

Maybe you don't care about messing around with other shit, but just having it work means a lot to people.

Cloud saves.

Again, sure you can manually back up to where ever. That means:

Find the save for whatever game. Some are in documents, some are in my games, some are in the game folder, others are in the Steam folder. Work out where it is and what's it called, the you can back it up. Now remember to back up your save everytime you finish. Now do it for every game you play and it quickly becomes a big hassle.

Steam.

Launch game, save is backed up when you finish.


Then there is stuff you can't replicate.

Take big picture mode.

Lots of people play on tvs now. You can kill explorer and have the system boot straight into it, just like a console. Steam is also the only storefront with 100% controller support for everything. If you can do it on keyboard/mouse, you can do it on controller. The others stores have limited if any controller support.

You can't replicate that on any other store.





Why does it matter if you find the reasons to warrant the position people take? No one is out to convince you.

You ask "why", no reason to think you aren't asking in good faith, you get your answer, just to be at a loss again and then keep asking, because it doesn's satisfy you.




People do think it through though. People know why they hold these positions, they tell you, just for you to go back to well you can sort of bodge the same with X, so it doesn't matter. Why do people hate epic. You want others to think it through, but you give Steam features a cursory glance and because you can bodge something that sorta works similar, but not as well, proclaim it's the same.

Infuriating, no. Tiresome yes. Every topic with Epic we get the same old "it's just a launcher, why people mad", hiding it behind "just asking questions and wanting people to think about it" doesn't change it.



It's relevant because ,you wanted to use no reselling as stick to beat Valve with, when it's all digital sellers. Not just valve.

Lose access is releavant, because that's "reselling". Sure with physical you could make a backup and sell it on, but haven't "resold" it in that case, you've made yourself a pirate copy and sold the original. No one would argue that's right.

If all the matters to you is you can resell it and some sort of honor system. Then buy physical steam copies/codes, don't activate and use a cracked copy instead. Your free to "resell" your steam copy then and delete the cracked one afterwards.

Both are basically the same, using your "honour" system, but I think when it comes to Valve that won't satisfy you.

To be fair, those are the features that I would say that elevate Steam up above other options, but the cloud save thing, outside of being automatic, is a feature on pretty much every system that I'm aware of. Maybe some are automatic, maybe they aren't, I haven't really kept up with all of the services as my money is tight with all of the responsibilities I have nowadays. Home theater support is nice as well as someone who barely plays multiplayer games online these days, let alone competitively enough to where I'd need a true 144hz TV for the experience.

The thing that drew yours truly to PC gaming was simply how much more "open" it was; no restrictions on filesystem use, you can do whatever you want, and it's all A-OK. The only problem until I got a modern PC was the hardware I had until 2015 essentially made gaming at any point for games past 2007 that weren't your typical Flash games or fangames an impossibility because trying to convince your (very fiscally conservative) parents to buy you a gaming PC is difficult and saving up money for a console is a lot easier when you don't have a consistent form of income until I decided to try and save up money for a PC that was definitely built on a budget, but had a lot of upgradability that kept yours truly satisfied until he decided to upgrade to something that'd support the amount of cores needed for games that weren't cross-generation releases or por...*coughs* ahem, I mean..."remasters" of previous generation games.

 

[Armadillo]

To be fair, those are the features that I would say that elevate Steam up above other options, but the cloud save thing, outside of being automatic, is a feature on pretty much every system that I'm aware of. Maybe some are automatic, maybe they aren't, I haven't really kept up with all of the services as my money is tight with all of the responsibilities I have nowadays. Home theater support is nice as well as someone who barely plays multiplayer games online these days, let alone competitively enough to where I'd need a true 144hz TV for the experience.

Epic has no cloud saves, your right, pretty much everyone else has them, Epic doesn't yet.

 

[Silent_Gunner]

Epic has no cloud saves, your right, pretty much everyone else has them, Epic doesn't yet.

You know, for games where you have to unlock a bunch of things, (a lot of older fighting games and Smash (especially Ultimate, GOD Spirits just dragged on and on. Really wish they made a better version of Subspace Emissary with more Nintendo enemies and locations as opposed to generic robots from generic 3DS Max/Maya models), some racing games, and any other games where things are locked behind hours of gameplay) a cloud backup can save you a lot of time spent and restore any progress made.

 

[FAST6191]

It's not really a discussion though when it just goes around and around in circles. You ask why people don't like Epic, people tell you, just for you to keep posting "but why".



A lot, but not all and certainly not with the convienace and reliablity of Steam. Lets take two that are "easily replicated"

Universal controller support

So you can use any controller you like, rather than just something that is xinput. Can you replicate it, sure, is it as convineant, no.

X360ce
xpadder
DS4windows (something like can't, can't remember the name)
joy2key

Sure some combination will get likely get it working in your game, but it's not guaranteed. Maybe it can't hook the game, why? now you have to troubleshoot that. Maybe there's an incompatablity, again, why? more hassle. Maybe the anti-cheat is blocking it, then you're fucked.

On the other, Steam controller support. Universal, set it up once and it works on every game on steam.

Maybe you don't care about messing around with other shit, but just having it work means a lot to people.

Cloud saves.

Again, sure you can manually back up to where ever. That means:

Find the save for whatever game. Some are in documents, some are in my games, some are in the game folder, others are in the Steam folder. Work out where it is and what's it called, the you can back it up. Now remember to back up your save everytime you finish. Now do it for every game you play and it quickly becomes a big hassle.

Steam.

Launch game, save is backed up when you finish.


Then there is stuff you can't replicate.

Take big picture mode.

Lots of people play on tvs now. You can kill explorer and have the system boot straight into it, just like a console. Steam is also the only storefront with 100% controller support for everything. If you can do it on keyboard/mouse, you can do it on controller. The others stores have limited if any controller support.

You can't replicate that on any other store.





Why does it matter if you find the reasons to warrant the position people take? No one is out to convince you.

You ask "why", no reason to think you aren't asking in good faith, you get your answer, just to be at a loss again and then keep asking, because it doesn's satisfy you.




People do think it through though. People know why they hold these positions, they tell you, just for you to go back to well you can sort of bodge the same with X, so it doesn't matter. Why do people hate epic. You want others to think it through, but you give Steam features a cursory glance and because you can bodge something that sorta works similar, but not as well, proclaim it's the same.

Infuriating, no. Tiresome yes. Every topic with Epic we get the same old "it's just a launcher, why people mad", hiding it behind "just asking questions and wanting people to think about it" doesn't change it.



It's relevant because ,you wanted to use no reselling as stick to beat Valve with, when it's all digital sellers. Not just valve.

Lose access is releavant, because that's "reselling". Sure with physical you could make a backup and sell it on, but haven't "resold" it in that case, you've made yourself a pirate copy and sold the original. No one would argue that's right.

If all the matters to you is you can resell it and some sort of honour system. Then buy physical steam copies/codes, don't activate and use a cracked copy instead. Your free to "resell" your steam copy then and delete the cracked one afterwards.

Both are basically the same, using your "honour" system, but I think when it comes to Valve that won't satisfy you.

Circular discussion does get a bit draining when the same empty reasons get trotted out again and again. I am still OK to discuss though.

So Steam is marginally more convenient if devs play into their APIs? Otherwise though it can still be replicated happily enough. Give or take the vendor lock in I could count that as a plus, how much of one it is though is usually where I find myself pondering things. Prior to Steam really taking off then most new games seemed to use the xbox 360 controller just fine, more or less plug and play. Older stuff was harder but I guess it still is.

Except it is not every time -- you can happily point your chosen backup service at the folder in question (or redirect folders around the shop). If Steam compels devs to tell it where saves go and accordingly can back them up that indeed is a marginal convenience over possibly/probably having to set a new folder in the list when you install a new game if it matters for that game.

Big picture stuff. I said before that a 10 foot UI is quite nice to have, though again it is a matter of small conveniences and how much they are truly valued here. The same games get played, and if a TV connected is the entertainment machine then there is probably a remote involved and those usually have a mouse if somehow a simple joypad to fake mouse script is not a thing, or jumping up for 10 seconds to play on a normal mouse and keyboard.

If the sum total of those handful of conveniences is indeed enough to get upset enough to demand refunds and whatever else I am seeing then I would probably say I hope people get less lazy and/or get thicker skin as applicable.

I want people to act logically. Some seem to want to convince me and I am wanting to be convinced -- discussion and debate is fun.

I resent the accusation of bad faith -- I will openly state I am operating in it as far as I am concerned, and going with the "any one experiment can prove me wrong" thing to underpin it all.

We get it every topic because I am still struggling to find a good reason for the extent of the dislike that is on display, one (or more) that I could use as a justification to join the Epic is the suxxorz and should be laughed out of existence brigade..

Again I was talking an abstract, one already available in a technical sense (I can assign ownership of a document on any number of office collaboration platforms, file storage, page ownership...). I agree that selling a copy of an IP type work necessarily involves giving up access to that instance of the work, that was the point of the barbie thing. What exists in the present for games is largely immaterial here for the point under discussion. Valve turning around and allowing resale would indeed clear up many of my issues with them. There is still the monopoly and censoring thing to handle but the amount of good will that would incur is hard to understate. As far as honour systems go I like such things but if they wanted to do an ownership ledger (possibly with something like the domain transfer codes so I can generate and send as necessary) and disallow me a download link or whatever then that would also work. Similarly while I have arranged accounts be sold and accounts be created for individual games to allow resale for others if Valve catch wind of such things they have historically cracked down on such things which makes it a workaround for lack of resale, but not a good one -- it is not actually that I care to resell games I own but want to be able to buy those from others wishing to sell it and Valve's setup does rather make that one harder.

Except that's not entirely the case here. It's not because it's a "new launcher".. Personally? I can't care what launchers come out anymore. Everybody wants their piece and that's fine. However, I can not and will not openly support Epic's strong-arm tactics to gain a place in the market. "It's just business" is also another empty defense people throw around. If the Epic store ran better, offered better security and wasn't run by Sweeney? There would be no issue. At that point it'd just be "another launcher" and these arguments would be Moot.

Granted, it seems people here are more set in defending why Steam is the better option. Not why Epic is hurting the gaming community. Maybe that's why I feel out place. Ha!

How is "It's just business" an empty defence? If you are a weaker player in a market then you either build out your own product (time, money and effort, one or more of which you may lack), buy something else in (how many companies are started with the intention of eventually being bought out? As far as tech goes it is probably the majority), offer better value than your competitors or possibly make your competitors have a harder time of sourcing things for themselves, especially if they are effectively a monopoly already.
As far as strong arm goes. Do we have any evidence of them saying "nice looking game you have there, would be a shame if it never made it to market" or something similar? Nothing I have seen thus far particularly supports a claim of strong arm. Other than lessening support or revoking a license for the unreal engine I am not even sure what they could do, and I doubt they would do either of those.

 

[eyeliner]

People love to praise Steam as a game launcher but rant about the other features most never use and Epic game launcher doesn't provide.
I use every client for a thing:
To launch a damn game.
I don't care for community features, print screens and other gamification features imposed on launchers just to look good on a diagramto convince people it's great.

I want it simple, and simpler launchers are good for me.

 

[Armadillo]

Circular discussion does get a bit draining when the same empty reasons get trotted out again and again. I am still OK to discuss though.

So Steam is marginally more convenient if devs play into their APIs? Otherwise though it can still be replicated happily enough. Give or take the vendor lock in I could count that as a plus, how much of one it is though is usually where I find myself pondering things. Prior to Steam really taking off then most new games seemed to use the xbox 360 controller just fine, more or less plug and play. Older stuff was harder but I guess it still is.

Of course they used the 360 controller fine. The 360 controller is xinput rather than dinput.

I literally said the universal controller lets you use anything, rather than just stuff that is xinput. And your response is, well before Steam a 360 controller (xinput) could be used anyway. There's other controllers people want to use that aren't xinput, that's the point and steam facilitates that easier and more reliably that a handful of other programs that may or may not work with whatever game.

Except it is not every time -- you can happily point your chosen backup service at the folder in question (or redirect folders around the shop). If Steam compels devs to tell it where saves go and accordingly can back them up that indeed is a marginal convenience over possibly/probably having to set a new folder in the list when you install a new game if it matters for that game.

Sure if you automate it, then you don't have to manually do it. That's still yet another piece of software you now have to run/setup, vs it just works.

Even once you have done that, you still have to go set it for every save location unless you want to point it just at my documents/whatever folder the saves may be and have other stuff backed up as well and not just your saves and even then that's just some of the saves. No avoiding doing it multiple times because saves are all over the place.

No one argued that it's not convineance issue. Shocking, people like things that are convineant, they like things that just work, rather than replicating something sort of similar with another program.

Yet again people liking convineance and stuff just working flys right over you and lands back in "well I can bodge something sorta similar" that works sort of the same, but not quite as well.

Big picture stuff. I said before that a 10 foot UI is quite nice to have, though again it is a matter of small conveniences and how much they are truly valued here. The same games get played, and if a TV connected is the entertainment machine then there is probably a remote involved and those usually have a mouse if somehow a simple joypad to fake mouse script is not a thing, or jumping up for 10 seconds to play on a normal mouse and keyboard.

If the sum total of those handful of conveniences is indeed enough to get upset enough to demand refunds and whatever else I am seeing then I would probably say I hope people get less lazy and/or get thicker skin as applicable.

So something that can't be replicated to the same extent and it's just boiled down to I hope people wouldn't be so lazy.

I want people to act logically.

No you want people to act "logically" according to you. According to the bar you've set over whether something is an issue or not.

If people value steams feature set enough, then they are acting logically. You don't, so according to you, others aren't acting logically.

I resent the accusation of bad faith -- I will openly state I am operating in it as far as I am concerned, and going with the "any one experiment can prove me wrong" thing to underpin it all.

Not an accusation. I said I responded because I assumed you were asking in good faith and actually wanted to know why people dislike epic, that's not an accusation.

We get it every topic because I am still struggling to find a good reason for the extent of the dislike that is on display, one (or more) that I could use as a justification to join the Epic is the suxxorz and should be laughed out of existence brigade..

A good reason according to you.

You asked why, you get told, it's not good enough so around and around we go. No one says you have to get on the epic hate train.

What exists in the present for games is largely immaterial here for the point under discussion.

Nah it's not. You are using not selling as a stick to beat valve with because you don't like them. It's not a valve thing, it's a digital distribution thing for games. You just tried to muddy the water with well I can sell drm free stuff even though I'm not supposed to.

There is still the monopoly and censoring thing to handle but the amount of good will that would incur is hard to understate.

Ah yes, the valve monopoly.

The one where

All of EA's games are on Origin.
Ubisoft games are on Uplay + Steam/Epic.
One of the biggest games in the world (fortnite) is on epic.
Blizzard games are on Battle net
League Of Legends, another huge game, pvp.net launcher.
Bethesda games, bethesda.net as well as Steam.
Microsoft's big games. Windows/xbox store + Steam (soon).

Then you can throw in the huge number of games available drm free on gog.

But yeah, terrible Valve monopoly.

 

[Xzi]

Does any development ever go exactly to plan? Minor stuff that does not impact gameplay and leaves it still running on an otherwise identical system... that is petty.

Err...yes? Every crowdfunded game I've backed that promised Steam keys ended up delivering on that promise. And I'd say stuff like controller support and reliable offline play support do impact the player experience to a significant degree, but regardless, pettiness doesn't enter the equation. Bait and switch is no way to run a business.

And?

And so there's no reason for EGS to exist at all if they aren't providing something for developers that wasn't already being provided. The 12% split won't be sticking around, as many EGS exclusives are already migrating to the new Win10 Xbox store, and that takes the same industry-standard 30% cut as others.

Why waste your time becoming the biggest little fish if you can convincingly take a swipe at the king?

Except there's nothing convincing about it, thus the reason Valve hasn't taken any action in response. Tim Sweeney spends all day digging his own grave on Twitter, and Valve has no reason to destroy their own image in that manner. 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake,' I think the quote goes.

Do you have and workups of the "while streaming" thing? I should be interested to read about that. The Chinese thing is potentially a problem, and reason I could see some want to skip out on it.

One of the high profile occurrences was actually the music artist Drake's Fortnite account getting hacked.

There are at least four other cases of big streamers getting hacked live according to this Youtube video, and I believe I've read about several more occurrences that aren't covered in the video.

 

[FAST6191]

No you want people to act "logically" according to you. According to the bar you've set over whether something is an issue or not.

If people value steams feature set enough, then they are acting logically. You don't, so according to you, others aren't acting logically.

A good reason according to you.

You asked why, you get told, it's not good enough so around and around we go. No one says you have to get on the epic hate train.




Nah it's not. You are using not selling as a stick to beat valve with because you don't like them. It's not a valve thing, it's a digital distribution thing for games. You just tried to muddy the water with well I can sell drm free stuff even though I'm not supposed to.



Ah yes, the valve monopoly.

The one where

All of EA's games are on Origin.
Ubisoft games are on Uplay + Steam/Epic.
One of the biggest games in the world (fortnite) is on epic.
Blizzard games are on Battle net
League Of Legends, another huge game, pvp.net launcher.
Bethesda games, bethesda.net as well as Steam.
Microsoft's big games. Windows/xbox store + Steam (soon).

Then you can throw in the huge number of games available drm free on gog.

But yeah, terrible Valve monopoly.

I am content for people to operate within their own parameters. Different people have different levels of risk they are willing to accept, different things they are willing to tolerate.

It is perfectly logical to enjoy what Steam provides. Whether that logic extends to having a little hissy fit because a game is not coming out on that service and demanding a refund is a different matter entirely.

Yes I want a good reason I can get behind to join the Epic games hate train. Thus far I lack one.
While nobody said directly I have to then there are plenty that wonder at my actions in tolerating them, and if people are going to have a nice little hate train I want to know why -- going as far as having said hate train is a fairly radical step.

I am using the lack of resale as a stick to beat anybody that does not offer it, Valve are just one of the targets. Just because none of the big boys have a resale option does not mean it does not exist within legal framework (the ability to resell software has been by many courts all over the world at this point, some are inclined to deem it something other than a simple sale that can be resold, others not so much) or is some kind of insurmountable technical challenge (the gifting thing they already have would function just fine as a basic thing here) means very little here, to say nothing of them having fought it every step of the way despite not having to.

Are we nit picking with the term monopoly again? What percentage of PC game sales do they do? Has getting on there not been something of a make or break thing for game devs for some years now (might be falling a tiny bit out of favour). They are a monopoly in the same way that Microsoft is a monopoly on the operating system market.

Err...yes? Every crowdfunded game I've backed that promised Steam keys ended up delivering on that promise. And I'd say stuff like controller support and reliable offline play support do impact the player experience to a significant degree, but regardless, pettiness doesn't enter the equation. Bait and switch is no way to run a business.


And so there's no reason for EGS to exist at all if they aren't providing something for developers that wasn't already being provided. The 12% split won't be sticking around, as many EGS exclusives are already migrating to the new Win10 Xbox store, and that takes the same industry-standard 30% cut as others.


Except there's nothing convincing about it, thus the reason Valve hasn't taken any action in response. Tim Sweeney spends all day digging his own grave on Twitter, and Valve has no reason to destroy their own image in that manner. 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake,' I think the quote goes.


One of the high profile occurrences was actually the music artist Drake's Fortnite account getting hacked.

There are at least four other cases of big streamers getting hacked live according to this Youtube video, and I believe I've read about several more occurrences that aren't covered in the video.

So if they assure offline support and have a reasonable controller API then things are good?

Competition is bad now? 12% being a teaser would be a shame, don't see why people wouldn't jump at it though for the time being and if they have wander back to Valve in the end then no great loss. People keep saying industry-standard cut as if that means anything too -- I thought the whole point of tech was to disrupt things and drive prices down. If people can't deliver an average of 30 gigs for 24% (assuming 6% transaction fees) of a full retail game and run a basic web shop on top of that then something has gone very wrong and we should probably all go back to pressing discs.

Time will tell then. Maybe it is Valve being able to take the not be concerned with the actions of ants thing. Maybe Valve will be caught napping.

Thanks for the links. Will have a look later and try figure out where blame might fall.

 

[Deleted-236924]

Price correction or allowing devs to sell alt versions for less, nominally where either incomes or inclination to pirate make it worth it? It could be considered in pros and cons of the various systems (I believe I did in a previous breakdown of that picture). All that said I am more likely to tell those regions' economies to get good.

kek

 

[Glyptofane]

Epic has no cloud saves, your right, pretty much everyone else has them, Epic doesn't yet.

I didn't know this. Even more shitty garbage than I thought. The PC Epic exclusivity almost makes me not want to even buy the PS4 version, but I will. I didn't back this one though. Only things I ever touched in that regard is my failure Switch copy of Bloodstained and the yet to be released The Good Life.