Epic acquires Psyonix, will stop selling Rocket League on Steam

[Bouzoo]

2 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

I've really rather hated most of the EGS stuff, but this is actually a good move by Epic in general*. Epic isn't EA and this mostly won't hurt Rocket League, as it's big on consoles.

*only if they let the game sell on Steam as well, which they will, at least for now. Why? We don't know how cross platform play between the 2 will, or won't work. Or you know, just let it sell indefinitely on Steam as well since it's been there for 4 years. 

[EldritchMoose]

9 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

It's weird arguing like EA is the good guy.

This may well be the most evil part of this whole thing - how does a game company screw up so badly that it's making EA look decent by comparison?

[Humbug]

13 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

ITT: Complaints of a non-monopoly taking games from a monopoly and feeling threatened by it

Steam regardless of whether you think they suck or not does not fit the definition of monopoly. They are merely the most widely used digital store front.

 

But they don't control access to the PC platform and don't restrict where games are sold. There a lot of stores and lots of devs/publishers have success on PC outside of Steam making millions of dollars including EA, Blizzard etc. 

 

You could say they need more competition from another equally compelling store, but they aren't a monopoly. Similar to how Nvidia does not have a monopoly on discrete GPUs, they are the most dominant player yes but not a monopoly, they are not the only viable option.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, EldritchMoose said:

This may well be the most evil part of this whole thing - how does a game company screw up so badly that it's making EA look decent by comparison?

Well, Epic managed to do that. It takes an expert in fuckups to achieve such an impossible feat.

 

If no one noticed, I never had an issue with Fortnite being on EGS only. It's their game, whatever, have it. I don't like it anyway so I don't give a shit. Ubisoft, EA and Steam do it too. Fine. But fucking up market by pushing exclusivity shit so desperately hard and stunts like this by ripping out an existing franchise that is sold in other places as well is just absolutely shitty and I'll take as much shit as I can and fling it at them for it. Because they really deserve it. EA fucked up their own games, but they never went out of their way to fuck up other games for people outside of Origin as well. Epic did exactly that and they can go F themselves for it.

[sof006]

This is getting ridiculous.

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, valdyrgramr said:

Actually, EA is going as far as buying their competition and then shutting the studios down.  Which is sadistic.

They didn't actually shut them down, they were just under EA brand. They shut down their internal studios after endless fuckups they make...

[Sauron]

13 hours ago, MeatFeastMan said:

Once again stupidity (of 10 year old fortnite players) is causing nasty market dominance like this.

Yes, Fortnite players are stupid for playing a game they enjoy. Of course, that's the main problem with the industry. /s

 

The problem here is DRM. If Fortnite players are "stupid" for helping Epic get where they are now then everyone else is just as stupid for ever buying or playing a game with DRM. This is what you get when publishers have full control of what distribution platform they want to use.

Here's how it should work:

• stores buy game licenses from the publisher
• those stores then resell those licenses at a higher price in exchange for their distribution service

This way any store willing to carry the game would have the ability to do so, publishers could set their supplier asking price to whatever they want (according to their sales expectations) and customers could choose to buy their stuff from whichever store they prefer, just like it used to work with physical copies and box stores. So here is the easy fix: ban DRM; but that won't happen because corporate copyright lobbyists will never allow it and have enough money to prevent it.

13 hours ago, Lurick said:

So why not, if the Epic platform is "better", keep the game for sale on Steam and offer it on Epic? Why possibly fragment a community like this?

It wouldn't fragment the community, I'm pretty sure you could still play online with those who bought it on steam. As for why they won't keep it on steam, the answer is money. They will no longer need to give a cut to valve (nor to anyone else since they own the store) and it will bring people on to the epic store.

That's capitalism for you.

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, Mooshi said:

ITT: Complaints of a non-monopoly taking games from a monopoly and feeling threatened by it

To be fair this is very quickly turning into a new monopoly taking games from the old one

[Bouzoo]

Just now, Sauron said:

To be fair this is very quickly turning into a new monopoly taking games from the old one

Steam was never a monopoly. They didn't force publishers to become big, neither are they misusing their position as industry (as far as we know) to assure it. Open market dictated that they become as big as they are, and the lack of competition if we're honest. But there is competition nowadays and (most) publishers ares till picking steam due to how big it is. Iirc Steam takes 50% of all digital PC sales. They are dominating but not a monopoly. And Epic is years behind then of coming even close, even at this rate. 

[yolosnail]

I guess the price is gonna drop now that they won't have to pay Steam's ridiculously high fees.....

 

Spoiler

Yeah, that's not gonna happen

 

[Sauron]

5 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

Steam was never a monopoly.

Yes it was (and still is at the moment). If you want to buy a game chances are you have no choice but to buy it from Steam or buy a Steam key from somewhere else.

6 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

They didn't force publishers to become big

Yes they did, by virtue of being the biggest fish in the pond. Not releasing on Steam has meant lower exposure and sales for years.

Epic isn't forcing any publisher to do anything by the way, at least not according to your definition.

8 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

neither are they misusing their position as industry (as far as we know) to assure it.

See above, just by having DRM and imposing their margins they are abusing of their position.

9 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

Open market dictated that they become as big as they are, and the lack of competition if we're honest.

Epic doing what they are doing right now is the "open market" working EXACTLY as intended. They have a better offer for developers and developers choose to take it.

11 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

But there is competition nowadays and (most) publishers ares till picking steam due to how big it is. Iirc Steam takes 50% of all digital PC sales.

Yes, which is why Steam has been a monopoly for years.

12 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

They are dominating but not a monopoly.

Yes they are, they fit every definition. They have an exclusive on the market for a huge number of games and they have an exclusive on the attention of Steam users - or at least used to up until now. Just because there has been minor competition doesn't mean they aren't a monopoly.

15 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

They are dominating but not a monopoly. And Epic is years behind then of coming even close, even at this rate. 

So... that only means Steam will remain a monopoly for some time.

4 hours ago, Humbug said:

Steam regardless of whether you think they suck or not does not fit the definition of monopoly. They are merely the most widely used digital store front.

 

But they don't control access to the PC platform and don't restrict where games are sold. There a lot of stores and lots of devs/publishers have success on PC outside of Steam making millions of dollars including EA, Blizzard etc. 

 

You could say they need more competition from another equally compelling store, but they aren't a monopoly. Similar to how Nvidia does not have a monopoly on discrete GPUs, they are the most dominant player yes but not a monopoly, they are not the only viable option.

If the existence of any amount of games that are distributed outside of a platform automatically make it not a monopoly then sure. By any sensible metric Steam is *absolutely* a monopoly - just like Microsoft, Intel and nVidia (controlling 95% of the market is a monopoly, period). For all intents and purposes, Steam has controlled PC game distribution for over a decade. Only a few publishers could afford to avoid it entirely and they were only the largest ones such as EA.

 

And to be clear: the mere fact that every game is unique means that whichever distributor sells it exclusively has a monopoly on that game's distribution. It just so happens that Steam also has a monopoly on the market as a whole.

[Princess Luna]

14 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

I'm just waiting for Steam to stop selling Unreal games.

Steam/VALVe is just like Intel, it died on time by getting far too comfortable being "market leader".

 

Remember Source Engine 2 was hyped to be the best out there? What games uses it? DOTA 2 and that's it? Meanwhile Unreal Engine keeps growing absurdly.

[D13H4RD]

Well, the goalposts go both ways.

 

Epic isn’t forcing anyone to sign their exclusivity deals, but neither is Steam directly forcing anyone to only release on Steam.

 

An important distinction is that Epic’s exclusivity deal prohibits the developer/publisher from selling that title on another storefront for the duration of the deal. So why do they choose to publish on EGS instead of Steam? Not necessarily the 88/12 split, but a lot of it is down to the revenue guarantees alongside potential additional funding.

[ravenshrike]

14 hours ago, Hellion said:

Epic games is just trolling all you virtue signallers bitter that your precious steam can't compete with their outdated business model.

The EGS business model requires the stream of pure profit that is Fortnite to prop itself up at all. I'm pretty sure massive amounts of funding from another part of the company that they're not likely to see a large return on is considered a very BAD business model over the long term. Instead they're hoping to be able to corner the market enough quickly so that they can stop the practice.

[Bouzoo]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Yes it was (and still is at the moment). If you want to buy a game chances are you have no choice but to buy it from Steam or buy a Steam key from somewhere else.

Yes they did, by virtue of being the biggest fish in the pond. Not releasing on Steam has meant lower exposure and sales for years.

Epic isn't forcing any publisher to do anything by the way, at least not according to your definition.

See above, just by having DRM and imposing their margins they are abusing of their position.

Epic doing what they are doing right now is the "open market" working EXACTLY as intended. They have a better offer for developers and developers choose to take it.

Yes, which is why Steam has been a monopoly for years.

Yes they are, they fit every definition. They have an exclusive on the market for a huge number of games and they have an exclusive on the attention of Steam users - or at least used to up until now. Just because there has been minor competition doesn't mean they aren't a monopoly.

So... that only means Steam will remain a monopoly for some time.

On phone so can't really quote each one separately. 

Anyway, yeah, no. For starters, being the biggest fish does not equal automatically having a monopoly. Controlling 95% you say? Last I can remember (year ago?) Steam got 50% of digital sales (I'd need to find a source) but that does not make them monopoly. Please state your source. You say it's a monopoly by every metric? By definition of the business dictionary:

Quote

Market situation where one producer (or a group of producers acting in concert) controls supply of a good or service, and where the entry of new producers is prevented or highly restricted. Monopolistfirms (in their attempt to maximize profits) keep the price high and restrict the output, and show little or no responsiveness to the needs of their customers.

Let's break that down.

Does Valve control the supply? Well yes on Steam, but not really. They do not control the supply directly for their own market since they even print codes for third party sites and don't take a cent and those can go anywhere a publisher wants. They even encourage other publishers to go publish on as many platforms as possible. It is the publishers who love Steam DRM. They do not prevent anyone entering the marker in any possible way, completely the opposite. They restrict the output? Nope. They fix the prices? Big nope again. Especially since you can buy games cheaper there and sometimes for basically nothing on legit other sites. They do not fall under monopoly under any definition.

Epic is not doing anything by my definition. Except, you know, paying publishers for exclusivity. But by your far stretched definition that is aomehow the same as "Steam forcing everyone to publish there because it's so big".

Please explain how by having DRM and having higher margins they are abusing the system. Please do. Here is food for thaught. Publishers can publish on GOG for instance. They don't want to due to no DRM. Publishers decide not to be user friendly and choose Steam. Bnet has drm, so does origin. They don't want to sell there as well. 

Let's clear one thing. Steam is not the good guy in the story. They are still an evil, but a lesser mine in my subjective opinion. But they never restricted anyone to go steam only. 

[Sparviero]

Looks like EGS is betting big on people shrugging their shoulders and using the platform after being forced on it. I thought they were just going to be patient and grab the sub 18 market binging on fortnite. 

 

[miagisan]

15 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Well, Crysis 3  was on Steam, iirc.  They pulled it to push their own store.  I believe ME 3 originally was too.

Me3 was never on steam. 

 

 

[D13H4RD]

To be honest though.

 

If we're talking monopoly as in monopolistic behavior, Valve is frankly shite at it.

[Jito463]

59 minutes ago, Sauron said:

See above, just by having DRM and imposing their margins they are abusing of their position.

Steam's DRM component is completely optional for the developers/publishers.  There are many games on Steam which have no DRM, unless you count needing to use the client for downloading as such.  As for margins, they're exactly in line with the rest of the industry, save for EGS.

59 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Epic doing what they are doing right now is the "open market" working EXACTLY as intended. They have a better offer for developers and developers choose to take it.

Publishers, not developers (save for self-publishing devs).  I doubt the devs are seeing any of this extra money getting promised to the publishers who took the exclusivity deals.  In fact, if exclusivity on EGS leads to lower sales, I have to wonder if it might even end up hurting the devs, depending on what kind of contract they have with their publisher.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

Please explain how by having DRM and having higher margins they are abusing the system.

I already did that; small and often even large publishers have no choice but to publish on Steam if they want a certain level of visibility, DRM then ensures that other storefronts can't distribute that game. It doesn't matter to the end user what the conditions for that agreement are if at the end of the day only Steam has that game. The system allows publishers to decide who gets to sell their game and Valve abuses that system to make their platform the only appealing one just by virtue of being the largest. They don't even need to make a conscious effort in that direction for this to be true.

1 hour ago, Bouzoo said:

Publishers can publish on GOG for instance. They don't want to due to no DRM. Publishers decide not to be user friendly and choose Steam. Bnet has drm, so does origin. They don't want to sell there as well.

I never said publishers aren't guilty of pushing DRM. I believe they should be forced to sell licenses to any storefront that wants them and that the software itself should be distributor agnostic and DRM free. You're looking at it from the wrong angle - it's not the publishers that suffer the effects of Steam's monopoly (at least not primarily), it's the end users.

[suits]

I seriously have no idea why so many people are upset about epic having exclusives. You realize the devs that you are supporting get more money through epic right?

 

People are so dumb. 

[D13H4RD]

16 minutes ago, suits said:

I seriously have no idea why so many people are upset about epic having exclusives. You realize the devs that you are supporting get more money through epic right?

Eh, that much is obvious.

 

But even then, EGS is still at the stage where it really doesn't offer anything significant for the consumer-end as of now. It's a very developer/publisher-centric platform.

 

If I'm honest though, that 88/12 split mostly makes sense for indies, especially when you throw in the revenue guarantees. When it comes to big AAA publishers like 2K and Ubisoft, the benefits are cloudier.

[Froody129]

Rocket League is already an established and stable game, and most of the hype surrounding it has dissipated. I think this is Epic acquiring developers for Fortnite. As they said about the stressed workers- they can't get more developers not because of financial reasons, but because they need the talent and experience. Rocket League is kinda similar to Fortnite in its business model, so they've used their considerable financial resources to acquire talented and successful developers. Smart move imo. 

 

----

 

I don't see why you all need to piss yourselves about Steam getting some competition. More competition is good, and Epic is an established team with talent - they are not the cancer that is EA. Valve is raking in money and not really doing anything with it. A push to action is good for everyone 

 

 

[Froody129]

10 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Eh, that much is obvious.

 

But even then, EGS is still at the stage where it really doesn't offer anything significant for the consumer-end as of now. It's a very developer/publisher-centric platform.

 

If I'm honest though, that 88/12 split mostly makes sense for indies, especially when you throw in the revenue guarantees. When it comes to big AAA publishers like 2K and Ubisoft, the benefits are cloudier.

It's a very new platform, that has been developing at breakneck speed, and that has the resources to reach feature-parity with Steam. Giving more money to devs is great if it means we benefit. EA and to an extent Ubisoft are different because they have made an art a manufacturing line, which doesn't work.

[D13H4RD]

4 minutes ago, Froody129 said:

I don't see why you all need to piss yourselves about Steam getting some competition. More competition is good, and Epic is an established team with talent - they are not the cancer that is EA. Valve is raking in money and not really doing anything with it. A push to action is good for everyone

I don't think people are mad because Valve has competition. If that were the case, then the tune would really be different as much more people would be pro-Epic in that sense.

 

It's mostly because of Epic's strategy of gaining ground that's become the point of contention for many. Not helping is how EGS seems to have many benefits for developers (good) but almost none for people who choose to use it over competitors (bad).

 

Now, if Epic were to do exclusivity and offer consumers a significant advantage over Steam, a different tune would be sung.