Ah that. I'm aware - not long ago I talked to somebody who considered Epic a walled garden, exactly like the iOS App Store, because they have exclusivity deals.
That's double wrong. Oh, it hurts.
... who do not want to deal with the outrage and indignity of installing a launcher other than Steam....
Incorrect.
I have GoG Galaxy and use it lots, thankyouverymuch. Love it, it's awesome.
It's not (only) about the launcher. It's about coercion, primarily. I will not give money to egs, they can't make me. And I will do everything in my power to never buy any game that was ever sold out to egs, from any other storefront, ever.
I hope it was worth it, developers.
Anyway, Humble is doing their pre-holidays encore party, where they put up bundles that were offered throughout the year again for a day each.
Fair enough. Personally I'm just a big fan of smaller gamedevs getting money 
That said, anyone have a review of the current epic freebie? I saw the words "crafting" and "survival" and "Tolkien" and clicked install, but I don't know when I'll get around to playing it..
Fair enough. Personally I'm just a big fan of smaller gamedevs getting money :D
Indeed. The Old World devs, for example, have said that without Epic stepping in after their previous publisher went under, the studio would have collapsed and the game wouldn’t have been finished.
That said, anyone have a review of the current epic freebie? I saw the words "crafting" and "survival" and "Tolkien" and clicked install, but I don't know when I'll get around to playing it..
IIRC it had a rough launch but was fixed via patches and people ended up liking it. My brother and I were going to play War of the Ring tabletop this weekend, but are going to give this a try instead.
I bought Return to Moria when it was on sale a few months ago and dropped a couple of hours in. It’s definitely got all the right checkboxes checked for the environment and look, but as a survival game I just wasn’t feeling it. For the price of free it’s absolutely worth checking out though.
Epic seems like it is trying to be a disputer style business. Like Uber or Grub hub. Where they pour a bunch of money in hoping to knock the market leader out or down a bit. So exclusives and and freebies all fall into that. And yeah I'll take the free games but at some point the bill will come due. And they'll have to start enshittifying to make a buck. Steam doesn't, they can be perfectly happy with the piles of cash they make and not make things worse because investors said to. And I think it'll stay that way as long as the current owners are around.
Epic is privately owned too. Between the money they bring in from the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, I think concerns about them enshitifying because the Epic Games Store isn't profitable are unfounded. They can afford to run EGS at a loss for as long as they want to.
You are right, and I didn't think of the unreal engine or fortnite. That can basically prop it up like google does for youtube. They still could do it but now they have other options that make sense. Thanks for the info.
Epic is privately owned too.
If a billionaire wants to keep handing me free games. *shrug* As long as the developers get paid I'm fine with it.
Forza Horizon 4 is 80% off on Steam until it gets delisted on Sunday.
I'd appreciate some selling or unselling on this one. The one game in the series I've played is 5, and I've gotten a lot of fun out of it.
Forza Horizon 4 is 80% off on Steam until it gets delisted on Sunday.
I'd appreciate some selling or unselling on this one. The one game in the series I've played is 5, and I've gotten a lot of fun out of it.
I jumped on it. I played the heck out of 5 with Game Pass.
They are very similar game-wise. 4 has great environments, and a tighter map, which I think is better than the wastelands of 5. Millions of things to do.
Epic seems like it is trying to be a disputer style business. Like Uber or Grub hub. Where they pour a bunch of money in hoping to knock the market leader out or down a bit.
I mean, ~every company spends money to buy customers, whether it's epic doing exclusivity deals or a local carwash putting coupons in the paper. But I'm not sure epic can actually do regular discounts without exclusivity - I seem to vaguely recall steam having rules against listing your game elsewhere for cheaper than it is on steam. So besides ads I guess freebies and exclusivity deals are their obvious choices, and it's nice to see marketing budget going to gamedevs rather than ad agencies.
That said, if there's one thing I know about internet arguments it's that they're never about the thing, but about how the thing makes people feel (see: every forum argument about AI). And personally I have generally positive views about Epic - their lawsuits against mobile app stores, etc. If this exclusivity argument was centered on a company I strongly dislike, I might have different conclusions.
I seem to vaguely recall steam having rules against listing your game elsewhere for cheaper than it is on steam.
If this were true, IsThereAnyDeal wouldn't be a thing, nor Steam Extension. Pretty sure that's something Amazon does though, which seems like naked price fixing/collusion, but crimes aren't a thing for companies.
Yeah I'm not clear on that part. Like I've definitely read that Steam's terms say you can't sell steam keys cheaper than the game's steam price, but as you say a lot of sites seem to do just that - no idea how that murky world functions.
fenomas wrote:I seem to vaguely recall steam having rules against listing your game elsewhere for cheaper than it is on steam.
If this were true, IsThereAnyDeal wouldn't be a thing, nor Steam Extension. Pretty sure that's something Amazon does though, which seems like naked price fixing/collusion, but crimes aren't a thing for companies.
There is a class action lawsuit related to this between studios and Valve:
Forza Horizon 4 is 80% off on Steam until it gets delisted on Sunday.
I'd appreciate some selling or unselling on this one. The one game in the series I've played is 5, and I've gotten a lot of fun out of it.
Sold.
Epic seems like it is trying to be a disputer style business. Like Uber or Grub hub. Where they pour a bunch of money in hoping to knock the market leader out or down a bit. So exclusives and and freebies all fall into that. And yeah I'll take the free games but at some point the bill will come due. And they'll have to start enshittifying to make a buck. Steam doesn't, they can be perfectly happy with the piles of cash they make and not make things worse because investors said to. And I think it'll stay that way as long as the current owners are around.
One thing to note about all these platforms (cloud capital) competing is that the entire point is to get as many consumers as possible into the walled garden.
On one end of the spectrum we've got the example of AMZN, where they just kept pushing and pushing and pushing to the point where they so own the market that we, the consumers, are really at their mercy. Many Prime subscribers will now just...pay whatever (and yes, there are examples of folks that will quit or abstain but that's not the majority).
On another end we've got Steam, which has tons of goodwill with their consumer base. It seems to me, as a non-PC gamer, that Valve continues to operate as though they're not trying to kill the golden goose; they avoid major greed grabs (?) and generally try to take the long view. It is still a walled garden, it's not a truly free market and gamers access to their games is subject to the benevolence of King Gabe.
Epic is later to the game, so they're trying to catch up. But they still want to "own" your money and your data for perpetuity as rent.
In either example, you're not really a customer ("I gives you $ you gives me thing I can do what I want with") - you're a digital serf, giving your data to your digital lord.
Anyway. Going to go fire up "my" digital copy of Diablo IV now on my XBox where I have a never ending sub to GamePass!
I know for me Epic came in with a lot of money yet the store lacked basic features that were considered standard. It felt rushed and that was not a sign that I want to see when signing up for a digital store. Would they stick it through or just give up in a year or two?
Then they got the Epic ego issue that I know a lot of people laughed at #FreeFortnight.
In an age of "disrupters" just reinventing the thing we already had but worse Epic's actions all seem to have a touch of the tech bro stench. I get not trusting them.
GOG came in and said we will sell you the old games you cant get anymore and we will make sure they work on modern PCs.
All Epic had to do was make a good store and Fortnite would have gotten them users. But making games like rocket league epic exclusive and a freemium game after people bought it on steam just makes people mad. If they were the store full of freemium games with free currency for a game weekly they would have been fine based off the in game purchases alone. But, they went for steam with an inferior store. Steam and GOG had built up good will, Epic launched a store and acted like they had the same goodwill built up.
On Topic:
I guess I am buying forza 4 ultimate as it is being delisted and I enjoyed 5 but not for the price it is currently at. Also Lego forza sounds fun.
On another end we've got Steam ... It is still a walled garden,
The ship may be sailing on this, but traditionally a walled garden is a closed platform where the platform owner controls access to apps or content on the platform - with the biggest currently-relevant examples being the iOS app store and most game consoles. PC game stores aren't walled - they can offer a developer exclusivity, but it's the developer who decides where their game is distributed.
On topic:
"Return To Moria" is pretty neat so far! Structurally, it's a lot like Valheim - except that it's an authored world, not procedural. A few bugs and some rough controls, but hey - you're a dwarf exploring Khazad-dûm, which counts for a lot.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Deluxe Edition is 96% off on GameBillet and similar deal on Greenmangaming.
Need for Speed Unbound is 93% off on Steam.
Civilization VI is 95% off on Steam.
Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Gold is 90% off on Fanatical.
Neva (new game from team that made GRIS) is 20% off on Steam...but if you buy the GRIX x Neva bundle it's even cheaper.
I loved GRIS so I'm excited to try Neva.
Neva meet Steam Deck....
Epic Freebie:
Vampire Survivors.
Next freebie in 17 hours and counting.
Glad I didn't buy that a couple months ago.
4 new Prime games too:
Predator: Hunting Grounds
Aces of the Luftwaffe - Squadron Extended Edition
Simulakros
Christmas Fables: The Magic Snowflake - CE
Steam Sale has also started.
Apparently you get sticker drops for looking at your queue, similar to recent sale. So no more card drops except with purchases?
Guess I finally will miss this badge. No way I'm spending $100 just for cards.
Steam Sale has also started.
Apparently you get sticker drops for looking at your queue, similar to recent sale. So no more card drops except with purchases?
Guess I finally will miss this badge. No way I'm spending $100 just for cards.
There are cards?
When I click on badges there is one for winter 2024 sale. But clicking on how do I earn drops says $10 purchases get 1 card drop.
I guess you also get drops from crafting other badges, if you happened to save some cards and wait for this sale to craft them.
Usually you get 1 free card per day for viewing discovery queue and then we trade in the steam trading cards thread. So you can get a sale badge for free without buying anything most of the time.
ScourgeBringer is free on Steam if you sign up for Fanatical's newsletter:
https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/sc...
Also Chicken Assassin on GOG
I love free games.
Speaking of... Epic today:
Astrea: Six Sided Oracles
Usually you get 1 free card per day for viewing discovery queue and then we trade in the steam trading cards thread. So you can get a sale badge for free without buying anything most of the time.
Oh, I know how the cards worked. It just seemed to me they didn't do it this time as there is no overt mention of the badge or anything, the way it was before.
I guess they are tightening the reins...
Epic Freebie:
TerraTech
an open-world, sandbox adventure game, where you design and build your own creations through a mix of crafting, combat & discovery. Design vehicles from a huge library of blocks. Scavenge, craft & buy new parts to survive, becoming the ultimate planetary prospector
On the pile it goes.
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