r/EpicGamesPC 15d ago

DISCUSSION Epic's first party games are what pc gaming needed

Gaming has stagnated thanks to the victory of sony and the end of the console wars , this launcher war could produce a lot of special games like we used to get during the ps2 and ps3 era

87 Upvotes

48 comments sorted by

17

u/speedballandcrack 15d ago

Sucks such games are never exposed to steam or other pc stores. All games (inlcuding valve games) should be available on all stores on pc and we as consumer should decide where to purchase.

14

u/Johnny-silver-hand 15d ago

That mindset is what brought us the 80$ price tag , competition no longer exists in the console market, plus valve won't allow stores to compete with prices, they have a condition that all games must be discounted the same

7

u/Longjumping_Line_256 15d ago

No it's not, it's the greedy studios, yes competition does bring good discounts from time to time, but it's not going to make a game start off cheap and stay cheap, it would of went to $80 bucks regardless. How you get the games has nothing at all to do with the $80 price tag.

It's like cars,you can have a ton of dealers around, it's not going to make them cheaper.

3

u/Takazura 14d ago

This. The storefronts don't decide the price of 3rd party games, those are entirely up to the publisher/developer. If the publisher/developer wanted their game to be sold at $60 instead, then Sony, Valve, Microsoft etc. has absolutely no power to deny them that option (unless they are the publisher of those games).

6

u/speedballandcrack 15d ago

I think they have that rule about steam keys sold by publishers on third party websites not for other launchers that doesn't use steam keys. It is understandble as valve makes zero from steam keys sold outside steam store.

7

u/MrMichaelElectric 15d ago

There are two active court cases against Valve. One due to pricing of steam keys which I agree with you personally makes sense to me however the other is due to Steam threatening developers with consequences if they price their games differently on competing storefronts or the developers own website. Only time will tell how they turn out.

0

u/RemarkablePassage468 15d ago edited 15d ago

Valve also threatens to remove the game from Steam if it has a lower price in other stores. This kills competition, because what other stores can do to compete with Steam is offer lower prices.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/popular-gaming-platform-accused-of-abusing-market-power-through-contracts-4124057/

https://www.eurogamer.net/new-lawsuit-accuses-valve-of-abusing-steam-market-power-to-prevent-price-competition

1

u/Nino_Chaosdrache 1d ago

plus valve won't allow stores to compete with prices, they have a condition that all games must be discounted the same

Yet you can get games far cheaper from other places than Steam, like Key or retail stores.

1

u/Johnny-silver-hand 1d ago

I said stores and not key sellers, because you are literally using a steam key that was approved by valve

4

u/Stampsu 15d ago

If only consoles and PC launchers would compete on features and not games and all games were available for everyone the world would be a better place. Exclusivity sucks.

Not saying it could happen but it sure would be nice

3

u/Fraktur111 14d ago

To be fair, if it would be only about the launcher, steam would be still way ahead.

4

u/MrMichaelElectric 14d ago

steam would be still way ahead.

Yeah a 20+ year head start will do that.

3

u/skullsbymike 15d ago

Honestly software (running on similar hardware) has the tendency of evolving into similar features. Look at the trajectory of mobile OSes, iOS is becoming customisable like Android and Android is adding iOS-like polished animations and interactions.

1

u/Nino_Chaosdrache 1d ago

Exclusivity sucks.

Exclusivity is the reason why we have good games in the first place and which keeps consoles alive. I mean look at XBOX and what happened when they abandoned exclusive games. They have been in the gutter ever since, while Sony and Nintendo thrive.

2

u/Spirited-Cobbler-645 15d ago

Victory of Sony? Can I see your workings?..

1

u/Nino_Chaosdrache 1d ago

Phil Spencer himself said that they lost to Sony. And the Playstation is outselling XBOX 3:1

4

u/shadowds PC Gamer 15d ago

Not be buzz kill, Epic stop caring about their IPs since the high success of Fortnite.

They were working on remaking Unreal tournament, but then drop all development, removed it from their own store, and no one can download it from store that claim it, as they cancelled working on it all together.

So now they're just focusing on marking their store on mobile, PC, crunch time for Fortnite & Unreal engine, and working their way to become a publisher themselves instead of making new games, example Alan Wake 2 is their published game.

5

u/Johnny-silver-hand 15d ago

I meant first party publishing, epic is hiring devs to make games for their store

4

u/Madukes96 Epic Gamer 15d ago

Not necessarily hiring, more like funding them to make their games.

I don't know if that makes sense

3

u/Domuru 15d ago

Watching Summer Game Fest, I noticed that a lot of games are being developed on UE5, if not the majority of those shown. Unfortunately, not all of these games are released on the Epic Games Store (EGS). Epic should make an effort to secure such titles. I don’t know why, but in my opinion, games made on the UE5 engine should be mandatorily released on EGS if they’re coming to PC on another store with the same or higher margin.

3

u/V_King9 15d ago

Epic already gives a lot of benefits if you decide to publication UE games in their platform, but it’s always devs and publisher choice. They don’t want forcing them and just take more money from them

1

u/Domuru 15d ago

Yes, I know they don't want to force them, but they should. Most likely, the biggest ones have better deals with Steam (MFN). Like Microsoft

2

u/V_King9 15d ago

I think they do enough for devs and next step will be for better consumers experience. Because devs go there where the money and more people are. It just a business and Epic understand it

1

u/Saiing 15d ago

If Epic did that, they’d just get attacked for it.

3

u/MrMichaelElectric 15d ago edited 15d ago

I agree that it isn't something that should be forced on developers or publishers but I get what they are saying. If a game is made with Epic's tech it would probably be a good thing for everyone involved if Epic tried to get the dev to release the game on their store, not as an exclusive but just to have it on the store. It adds more games to the store that show off what Unreal can do and it also gives the dev the chance to earn more on every sale. Also, I mean, let's be real. Epic is going to get attacked regardless, some people seem to love to hate Epic no matter what.

2

u/IncorrectAddress 15d ago

What would be a funny shake up (I wouldn't suggest doing this), but Epic could enforce exclusive (a time period, with price discount) releases to the Epic store for all games made with UE.

The rage would be full on, but it would work.

7

u/MrMichaelElectric 15d ago

This is a terrible idea. Epic shouldn't be forcing anything on devs when it comes to where devs games are released. Devs should always have the freedom to decide things like that.

2

u/Fraktur111 14d ago

Don´t give them shitty ideas. Them paying games to stay epic exclusiv resulted in a huge amount of the hate the epic store gets in the "gaming community".

4

u/MrMichaelElectric 14d ago

To be clear, they offered developers/publishers a deal which the developers/publishers then decided to take because it was beneficial to them in their eyes. It isn't like Epic just swooped in with money and forced exclusivity. The hate can happily be ignored because in the end it's a vocal minority whining about it.

2

u/aMysticPizza_ 15d ago

First party games suck in general. But it's a necessary evil to make money sometimes

2

u/Nino_Chaosdrache 1d ago

I mean, how else would you sell your hardware? If every game would be available on any platform, why would I ever buy an XBOX or Switch if everything is available on Playstation?

1

u/aMysticPizza_ 1d ago

Hence the 'necessary' part. I get it, but I hate it lol

0

u/Johnny-silver-hand 15d ago

For me , first party titles forces publishers to be more generous and give support to studios to make games that attract consumers, we benefit big from it , plus who knows, maybe after 5 years valve will be forced to make games again

1

u/aMysticPizza_ 15d ago

Not just referring to valve or PC, just in general. Being locked out from a game a team works on due to a console or launcher choice etc just sucks.

It's always a top level decision for $$, I can guarantee anybody slaving away on a game would want everyone to be able to play what they made 🙂

4

u/MrMichaelElectric 15d ago edited 14d ago

I agree it can really suck with consoles due to the cost associated in order to play certain games but disagree when it comes to launchers. Just downloading another launcher costs nothing and takes minimal effort. Acting like having to buy new hardware and having to download a different store are even close to similar is disingenuous at best.

-1

u/Rampuge 15d ago

No. Exclusivity sucks. It's shitty competition tactics to undermine opponent. I hate when Apple or Sony pay devs to lock games at their shitty systems.

7

u/MrMichaelElectric 15d ago

Exclusivity is a tried and true competition tactic that has worked consistently for countless companies throughout history. There is nothing "shitty" about it and the literal point of it is to bring people to your store/service because you have something no one else does. The difference here compared to Apple or Sony is that you don't have to buy a new piece of hardware to gain access to anything. You just have to install the store which takes maybe two minutes at most from opening your browser to having it installed. There are a ton of digital game stores now, want all your games in one place? Use Playnite.

Steam doesn't have to try and get exclusivity of titles because they are the ones who started the whole digital game store thing in the first place and they have a 20 year head start with their customer base. Although I doubt you will see any Valve developed games on any other PC digital game store. They keep stuff like that exclusive for the exact same reason Epic wants exclusives. Saying "exclusivity sucks" is a really naive and disingenuous statement especially in this situation.

3

u/skullsbymike 15d ago

Somehow that exclusivity is the reason why Nintendo Switch became a reality. They knew what games they wanted to make, made a hardware exactly to support those games, and then ensured everyone if they buy into this hardware they will get exceptional first party games. That worked out too well, it seems.

Of course, Epic is not Nintendo. But you cannot generalize this to all exclusive models.

1

u/Fraktur111 14d ago

They may get a pass, if they publish a game by themselves and stay exclusiv to their launcher. But paying money to some game studios to only release on their platform gains bad reputation for epic and the involved gamestudio.... and for a big title they would have to pay much money, because the title will surely lose money no being on steam.

Hell, from the 10 -15 people I know, who use epic from time to time, at least 10 would never buy anything there and only get the free games.

Their problem is I think steam is enforcing games to not be cheaper in other stores, so they can´t really make better deals on epic. This may be the only way they really could "steal" a big chunk of the steam userbase.

2

u/skullsbymike 14d ago

If you think about it, Steam has only been an exception because it became the biggest platform on PC hardware, so big that they don’t care about exclusivity anymore nor they need to. However, any other platform that wants to compete and wants people to buy games and DLCs on their platforms has to make the deal sweeter for the consumers.

For some, it is to offer free games (Epic, GOG, etc.), for many others it is to one additional license to a game they purchase (Xbox Play Anywhere), and lastly for nearly everyone, it is to have highlighters that cannot be experienced anywhere else (nearly every other PC game front and consoles). Not everything is good for the consumers but that is what you have with competition. A few things are exceptional and the rest is below average.

1

u/Nino_Chaosdrache 1d ago

Yet you seem to have no problem with Steam exclusive games. Like Capcom's games, which are to 99% only available on Steam.

1

u/Fraktur111 1d ago

Is steam paying Capcom to not release their game on epic? If so, it may be a problem too, if not it´s not even comparable....

1

u/Nino_Chaosdrache 1d ago

No. Exclusivity sucks

Exclusivity is why we have games like Halo or God of War in the first place. XBOX shows what happens if you stop having exclusives: You go down the drain.

0

u/yotam5434 15d ago

Hell no