X-Com successor Phoenix Point pulls out of GOG/Steam due to Epic payday

[RejZoR]

I'm not even outraged anymore. What, the game only comes on Epic Store? Cool, then I simply won't be buying it at all. Been pleasure not doing business with you I guess. I never need any game so desperately that I'd bend over under their demands. Like with Metro 2033. I bought that game twice for both main game and the expansion, on Steam and GOG. Exodus is only on Epic. I didn't buy it and frankly don't really give a shit if it comes to Steam a year later, quite honestly...

[WereCatf]

3 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Why shouldn't they be? 

Personally, I think people should push back on companies and devs even more. People let companies and devs get away too easily when they pull off scummy shit. (Not just when it comes to gaming, but pretty much everything.)

[williamcll]

This the TRUE POWER of V-bucks

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Personally, I think people should push back on companies and devs even more. People let companies and devs get away too easily when they pull off scummy shit. (Not just when it comes to gaming, but pretty much everything.)

Easier said than done when people are all too willing to bend over to get themselves fucked over by corporations 

[Sovek]

7 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

people are outraged so easily.

and why shouldn't we? I didn't back this game, but they were told "Steam and GoG keys" then in comes Epic, says sign this contract, we'll give you a buttload of money, just can't have it on another platform. The only reason The Division 2 escaped was likely because its Ubisoft and they have more than enough money and their own store front. 

 

And I'd be outraged too if my data got stolen because of insecure servers, a crappy store, crappy launcher, crappy service, crappy EULA, everything that is Epic Games is crap and scummy. The only reason they can do this is because of their success of Fortnight and Tencent. And being owned mostly by Tencent itself is alarming. Yes they are investing in a lot of stuff, but so do most investment companies, the scary part is Epic is almost, if not entirely OWNED by Tencent, and Tencent is not friendly to the consumer and extremely friendly with The Party. 

 

Plus we PC gamers don't like consoles for the most part BECAUSE of locking the game behind a console system. Want that game? too bad, need our system. Oh, you want to play online, too bad, pay  us money cause reasons. Imagine if you will shelling out $120/year for the privlage of being able to play a game online, thats of course on top of your ISP costs, + the costs of two (or three) consoles.... 

 

That is why I refuse to play on consoles. Because they don't respect the consumer, Valve and GoG at least do.

[ravenshrike]

9 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

tHiS iS cOmPEtiTiOn

 

- Blind fanboys 

Also Jim Sterling. Why? Because he thinks that this will drive Steam to clean up its marketplace. It goes without saying that that is a completely moronic line of reasoning.

[yian88]

The desktop gaming markets just keeps on becoming shittier, if you use EpicStore or Microsoft Store for games slap yourself...

[Delicieuxz]

Fuck those developers and fuck the anti-competitive Epic Games Store with Tim Sweeney's pissing-in-our-faces-and-telling-us-that-it's-raining propaganda about increasing consumer choice and doing what he thinks is best for PC gaming.

 

Remember his public attacks on Microsoft for trying to create a walled garden with UWP? Clearly, he was not opposed to the practice and was simply jealous.

 

He's obviously a greedy thug psychopath who has no problem lying through his teeth to everybody's faces and who perceives no differences between truth and falsehood.

 

Anyone who supports that crap is responsible for the shittifying of PC gaming.

 

 

Also, recall people arguing there to be no evidence Epic is paying for exclusives and that developers going exclusive to EGS was all due to EGS having a lower platform fee (even though Tim Sweeney basically said otherwise, Metro Exodus was sold at a loss in North America on EGS compared to Steam, and EGS has nowhere near comparable popularity and market reach to Steam)?

 

This is purely greed and all the 'consumer choice' spiel is manure for the mouths of the foolish. And the fail-apologists need to start thinking with their heads rather than silly 'sounds like a conspiracy theory' sentiments.

[mr moose]

It would be interesting to see how this would go in a court.  I don't think I've seen a crowdfunding agreement challenged as a contract yet and I would like to know if the crowdfunding promises constitutes a contract when they accept the money.  If it does then the funders are entitled to not only their money back but also further losses/damages as a breach of contract includes not only the money invested for that period of time without a return,  but they no longer have the goods as promised.

 

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

I had my doubts about Epic from day 1.  Now I'm truly convinced that I will never create an account there and will never knowingly buy any game from a dev that has ever signed an exclusivity agreement with them.

[Guest]

Radiation Therapy and Chemotherapy May be suitable for this type of cancer, and they are particularly amenable to highly proliferating malignancies.

 

Really, they have failed on their contract for their Kickstarter, and should not be eligible for the money pledged.

[xAcid9]

Wow dick move, remind me not to support them. 

[Taf the Ghost]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

It would be interesting to see how this would go in a court.  I don't think I've seen a crowdfunding agreement challenged as a contract yet and I would like to know if the crowdfunding promises constitutes a contract when they accept the money.  If it does then the funders are entitled to not only their money back but also further losses/damages as a breach of contract includes not only the money invested for that period of time without a return,  but they no longer have the goods as promised.

 

 

You'd probably need to do it in a Class Action suit, given it's a small, speculative "investment", at the end of the day. They do disclaim that this could fall through, so you need a large enough of an individual loss to make it worth the costs to pursue it. Basically, it just means nothing big will happen until Star Citizen finally folds and we get a decade of legal battles over it. (This assumes that Star Citizen hasn't already become a money laundering or back-channel money running front. )

[Andreas Lilja]

Borderlands 3 was worse imo, especially Gearbox's CEO praising really hard Epic's Store on Twitter.

[mr moose]

17 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

You'd probably need to do it in a Class Action suit, given it's a small, speculative "investment", at the end of the day. They do disclaim that this could fall through, so you need a large enough of an individual loss to make it worth the costs to pursue it. Basically, it just means nothing big will happen until Star Citizen finally folds and we get a decade of legal battles over it. (This assumes that Star Citizen hasn't already become a money laundering or back-channel money running front. )

Probably, I'd just be more interested in the courts ruling on platform funding and legal obligation.  Personally I'd like to see precedent set that what ever was promised at the time of funding must be honored unless both parties agree to an alternative.

[Delicieuxz]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

It would be interesting to see how this would go in a court.  I don't think I've seen a crowdfunding agreement challenged as a contract yet and I would like to know if the crowdfunding promises constitutes a contract when they accept the money.  If it does then the funders are entitled to not only their money back but also further losses/damages as a breach of contract includes not only the money invested for that period of time without a return,  but they no longer have the goods as promised.

Breach of fiduciary responsibility and breach of good faith are other seemingly-applicable legal accusations that can be made.

[Taf the Ghost]

11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Probably, I'd just be more interested in the courts ruling on platform funding and legal obligation.  Personally I'd like to see precedent set that what ever was promised at the time of funding must be honored unless both parties agree to an alternative.

It'll eventually get hashed out, but it's still going to be ugly when it does.

[D13H4RD]

4 hours ago, ravenshrike said:

Also Jim Sterling. Why? Because he thinks that this will drive Steam to clean up its marketplace. It goes without saying that that is a completely moronic line of reasoning.

This is one of those cases where I have to vehemently disagree with Sterling.

 

I agree that Steam should clean up its marketplace, specifically from trash alongside games really just designed from the ground-up to incite hatred. A hands-off approach has inherent risks. 

 

However, I disagree that Epic is going to pose much of a risk. The only thing Valve has done in response is basically tweaking their revenue split based on the number of copies sold, where the cut goes down to as low as 20% if you exceed a certain revenue target.

 

What makes or breaks a platform is not just the number of games it has but also the number of users. Epic can dream all day long, but tactics like these aren’t going to result in a mass exodus of users from Steam, not when there is no good reason for users to try the platform out. The multiple criticisms, specifically on how spartan the platform is, doesn’t help.

 

Strangling the marketplace like this is detrimental to the overall market and if anything, is more harmful to smaller players like GoG than Steam.

 

On the flip side, Microsoft, previously (rightfully) criticized for selling their games only on the Microsoft Store, now sells the Master Chief Collection on Steam alongside their own store.

[ZacoAttaco]

Saw this headline, opened up EGS, again realised how many features are missing...

 

No additional ways to display your game library.

 

Lack of meaningful options in settings menu.

 

Notified on each launch to accept friend requests with no obvious option to disable.

 

This is why I hate Epic Games Store.

Everything seems so rushed.

[Bcat00]

I actually don't get why people would be annoyed. The game is still coming regardless of the platform.

All they need to do is download the Epic game store, how hard is that?

[ZacoAttaco]

26 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

I actually don't get why people would be annoyed. The game is still coming regardless of the platform.

All they need to do is download the Epic game store, how hard is that?

It's a common sentiment, my problem is not necessarily the exclusivity of the game but more the Epic Games Store client itself. Epic are enticing players in through exclusivity deals rather than making a worthy competitor to the Steam client. As a result the users get a lesser and half baked client, which is what EGS is now.

[The Benjamins]

4 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

I actually don't get why people would be annoyed. The game is still coming regardless of the platform.

All they need to do is download the Epic game store, how hard is that?

Linux users lost linux support first now they can't even try to run it with steam play.

 

Chinese users can't use the epic launcher in there country now they have to wait a extra year.

 

sounds a bit hard for some users to me.

[PineyCreek]

Well...they didn't put a timeframe for when they'd offer Steam or GOG keys after release, but even though it might be quote on quote legal in that the wording allows them to do it, it's really really disingenuous with the timed exclusive.  It's like advertising that a game will be on PC, XBox, and PS in the trailers/commercials, but the PC version doesn't come out for a year and a half.  Granted, if you can play on Steam or GOG you can play on Epic, there's no specific platform restriction in that regard (unless you're on Linux), but it IS a platform restriction and at best presents an aura of false advertising even if it's not exactly false advertising in the legal sense...

 

If the extra funds truly helps them make more content I can see the developer's decision, but it goes against the public's view of their original promises.  Some published opinions from the developers highlights at least a faction within them believing it's not a big deal to betray the public trust when they say that they could lose all the funding from their crowdfunding campaign and still 'be in the black'.

 

Gives me a scummy feeling.  No thank you to this game.

[D13H4RD]

59 minutes ago, Bcat00 said:

All they need to do is download the Epic game store, how hard is that?

It’s a lot more than just “durr, aNoTHer lAuNCher”

[Suika]

Wait, so did Epic Games legitimately spend over $2,000,000 to make this exclusive to their launcher?

 

With that kind of money, they probably could have hired capable developers to make a more compelling platform instead.