Epic Store Forced Discounts on some Publishers' Games

[Unixsystem]

Just now, TechyBen said:

Aaand?

And I was replying to his post, which as far as I could tell seemed to be a response to others on this forum. I wasn't commenting on what game devs have or haven't said. 

[YoloSwag]

9 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

I hope it gets pulled from the site entirely

 

This whole thing sounds like when people are in a new relationship and they didn't expect the other to enforce some rules on them and they get skittish. lol

[D13H4RD]

Another thing that became more apparent out of the sale is that if you attempt to buy multiple games in quick succession, Epic blocks your account from further purchases and you will have to contact customer support to lift it. 

 

Sounds simple enough as a means to curb fraudulent purchases, but it also highlights why a shopping cart is a fundamental item to any storefront. Whilst not everyone will make full use of it, periods of large sales that often see products discounted by large amounts will usually see consumers purchase more than a single item, so it makes sense to lump those into a shopping cart and have it treated as a single combined transaction. 

 

Honestly, I feel that Epic should have prioritized implementing some of these basic features before holding a sale as first impressions matter. Inconveniences like these only serve to sour the experience. 

[YoloSwag]

3 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

Another thing that became more apparent out of the sale is that if you attempt to buy multiple games in quick succession, Epic blocks your account from further purchases and you will have to contact customer support to lift it. 

 

Sounds simple enough as a means to curb fraudulent purchases, but it also highlights why a shopping cart is a fundamental item to any storefront. Whilst not everyone will make full use of it, periods of large sales that often see products discounted by large amounts will usually see consumers purchase more than a single item, so it makes sense to lump those into a shopping cart and have it treated as a single combined transaction. 

 

Honestly, I feel that Epic should have prioritized implementing some of these basic features before holding a sale as first impressions matter. Inconveniences like these only serve to sour the experience. 

It's funny how they acting like a real competitor but they're not even doing better than Steam in relation to customer convenience. They had every opportunity to learn from Steam, Origin, UPlay, etc.

[EldritchMoose]

21 hours ago, JZStudios said:

No Mans Sky is still $60, despite it's colossal failure of a launch and its age now. Even GTAV has been dropped to $30. I suppose conversely the Yakuza PC ports are rather successful and started at $20. I paid full price for that.

I don't buy pretty much any game full price because there's no demos and I think the Steam refund policy is still garbage. And I'm not pirating to demo. At the very least if I buy a physical console game from a store, there's usually a week long refund period, not 2 hours. Even if it is just store credit I could then spend that money on something I'd actually enjoy.

No Man's Sky is at least getting good publicity nowadays, I keep hearing from people that they actually wound up overhauling the game to the point where it's at the very least a decent product now. Not sure how many sales it's going to be getting at that price point, though.

 

As for GTA V, well that came out nearly 6 years ago so it's a safe assumption that any copies sold now would never have been sold at full price anyway.

 

That's kinda what it comes down to, I think: any game has a limited time where its value is equal to (or higher than) its original MSRP. By unabashedly putting games on sale that haven't even been released yet, there is a chance that it will hurt future sales at full price. I'm not saying that some games are big enough to be unaffected (Borderlands will probably be in that camp) but receiving two price drops within the first month of its release definitely hurt Fallout 76's sales and Bethesda's brand even if the sale price was far from the only reason.

 

I genuinely don't get Epic's strategy. They started so well with the idea that they were going to compete with Steam in a way that benefits the developers more, yet every single move they made since then undermines that further. It's like how adding more and more superlatives to a country's official name decreases the likelihood of those superlatives actually being accurate.

[Unixsystem]

4 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

receiving two price drops within the first month of its release definitely hurt Fallout 76's sales and Bethesda's brand even if the sale price was far from the only reason.

I agree with everything else you said, but come on now. The only thing that hurt Fallout 76's sales is the fact that it's Fallout 76. They couldn't even give the game away for free. 

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

On 5/20/2019 at 9:41 AM, goodtofufriday said:

i dont get it. If the dev didnt lose on any money, since it was at epics expense, why does it matter. 

It sets the wrong expectations for unreleased games. A discounted launch price is going to hinder game sales at full price later.

[JZStudios]

7 hours ago, EldritchMoose said:

No Man's Sky is at least getting good publicity nowadays, I keep hearing from people that they actually wound up overhauling the game to the point where it's at the very least a decent product now. Not sure how many sales it's going to be getting at that price point, though.

 

As for GTA V, well that came out nearly 6 years ago so it's a safe assumption that any copies sold now would never have been sold at full price anyway.

Typically when a game has a disastrous launch like BFV, Anthem, Fallout 76, Duke Nukem Forever etc. the price drops pretty quickly. No Mans Sky had a disastrous launch and not a single word from the devs for months, and it's now 3 years old after that occurred and it's still full price. I know they updated it, but I'm curious to see how much of what was advertised has been added in or is still lacking.

[goodtofufriday]

14 hours ago, FPSwithaWacomTablet said:

It sets the wrong expectations for unreleased games. A discounted launch price is going to hinder game sales at full price later.

That not how that works.

 

No one expects a Sale price to stick.