Thanks to a post on Reddit, we've learned that Epic Games currently have no plans to put their store on Linux.
In response to a user question about it on Twitter, Sergey Galyonkin, the person behind Steam Spy who now works for Epic Games as the "Director of Publishing Strategy" said this:
It really isn’t on the roadmap right now. Doesn’t mean this won’t change in the future, it’s just we have so many features to implement.
It's interesting, since their original announcement mentioned the store was coming to "other open platforms" besides Windows, Mac and Android which we presumed would mean Linux. It's odd, since there aren't really other open platforms besides those to put a store on. We also had Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, give a ray of hope on Twitter with "We'll See :D" in reply to a user asking if the other open platforms meant Linux. So, I do still find it very odd that it's not on the roadmap at all. Not surprising though, Linux has always been low priority for Epic Games.
This could create an issue for us in future, since Epic Games are taking on timed-exclusive games which would mean no possibility for a Linux version until that ends. Even then, the developers of those games could decide to remain solely on the Epic Store. Remember, this has already happened with Satisfactory from Coffee Stain having the Steam store page removed to be exclusive to the Epic Store.
Speaking on Reddit, Epic's Sweeney said "These exclusives don’t come to stores for free; they’re a result of some combination of marketing commitments, development funding, or revenue guarantees.". So with that in mind, Epic Games are offering some commitments to developers to get their games, which could sway some future high-profile titles away from the likes of Steam.
For Linux gamers we still have Steam, GOG, Humble Store, itch.io and a few others which support Linux games. Heck, even Discord confirmed their store will come to Linux. For now, the Epic Store isn't a huge deal and doesn't have a lot of games (or features) for users so it won't be a huge problem right away. It will be interesting to follow, especially to see what Valve plan to do to prevent too many games leaving.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: KristianThat is true enough. But if all the games leave Steam for Epic's store, Steam won't continue to have "the most users".
Steam users have game libraries built over years, they aren't going to drop steam just because there's a better deal or a cool exclusive game in the other store. Steam can lose some player-hours but certainly not users.
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Quoting: pbQuoting: KristianThat is true enough. But if all the games leave Steam for Epic's store, Steam won't continue to have "the most users".
Steam users have game libraries built over years, they aren't going to drop steam just because there's a better deal or a cool exclusive game in the other store. Steam can lose some player-hours but certainly not users.
People continuing to use Steam to play their current games matters little to Valve's(and similarly GOG's etc) financial situation if people cease buying new games since there are no longer any new games being released because developers and publishers stop releasing them since they want 88% instead of 70%.
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Nevertheless Jan 1, 2019
Quoting: KristianQuoting: NeverthelessQuoting: KristianThe thing that could be worrying would developers abandoning Stean(and GOG etc) due to Epic's 12% cut. If few or no new releases appear on Steam they are in trouble.
If Epic's store becomes dominant and it doesn't support Linux thatvwould be bad for the Linux marketshare.
It's not easy to ignore Steam, as they stll have the most users, but I think Valve has to reduce their cut in the long run, to avoid slow price induced erosion.
That is true enough. But if all the games leave Steam for Epic's store, Steam won't continue to have "the most users", since the users will leave with the games.
That's what I meant with erosion. Epic has better revenues to offer, as well as a more prominent place on the shelve (less shovelware), Steam has a bigger audience, as well as proven services and infrastructure. Epic will work on its shop, Valve will hopefully implement a sh!tfilter. If devs should really ask slightly lower prices for their games on Epic (because of their higher revenues there), they could force Valve to lower its cut too.
It should be interesting to see if and how Valve reacts to exclusive games on other stores. I hope they won't be forced to use that ugly tool too!
Last edited by Nevertheless on 1 January 2019 at 4:48 pm UTC
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Nevertheless Jan 1, 2019
Quoting: pbQuoting: KristianThat is true enough. But if all the games leave Steam for Epic's store, Steam won't continue to have "the most users".
Steam users have game libraries built over years, they aren't going to drop steam just because there's a better deal or a cool exclusive game in the other store. Steam can lose some player-hours but certainly not users.
True! But I'm sure it'll hurt Valve if people incresingly purchase on other stores.
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elbuglione Jan 1, 2019
R.I.P. Epic Store...
The prodigy child was born dead.
The prodigy child was born dead.
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ElectricPrism Jan 2, 2019
I will be loyal to whoever is loyal to us. Apparently Epic Games is not one of them. They won't have my support or my money until their stance changes.
Valve has been the #1 game developer investing in Linux technology development so they will continue to have my loyalty for some time due to their actions on our behalf.
With all their work to bring Xbox Controller, Dual Shock 4, and others to Steam platform the entire community even those who don't use their platform owe them acknowledgement and mad respect for them making PC gaming a awesome experience.
Valve has been the #1 game developer investing in Linux technology development so they will continue to have my loyalty for some time due to their actions on our behalf.
With all their work to bring Xbox Controller, Dual Shock 4, and others to Steam platform the entire community even those who don't use their platform owe them acknowledgement and mad respect for them making PC gaming a awesome experience.
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It was obvious from the beginning Linux was not a priority. How many times did we have false hope like this? How many projects on kickstarter did not deliver the promised Linux version? We had GOG telling us "soon" for years.
There are developers and store that care about Linux. We should focus on these ones because they make efforts towards making Linux a solid gaming platform. But more importantly there are many others that don't give a shit. Those ones we should just ignore them.
If there is something we have to learn from the 20 years of gaming on Linux is help the ones committed to Linux, don't trust promices but results.
Epic, like GOG, obviosuly say "maybe in the future". It the easy and safe thing to say. But in the meantime they hurt the Linux gaming community. And yes it does include GOG, just have a look at how many games with Linux version on Steam do not have one on GOG? The usual explaination from devs is their games use galaxy for multiplayer, which on GOG is a perfectly normal thing. So sorry to disappoint the ones saying "We still have GOG", that's wrong. By the way, I'm not anti-GOG, I buy a large number of games there. GOG have lots of good points, but Linux support is not one of them.
Likewise, I'm very sad about how much the Linux gaming community welcomed the Epic store while it not supporting Linux. We certainly made welcomed but undeserved advertisement to a anti-Linux store. We should add to the "no tux, no bux" the "no tux, no post".
There are developers and store that care about Linux. We should focus on these ones because they make efforts towards making Linux a solid gaming platform. But more importantly there are many others that don't give a shit. Those ones we should just ignore them.
If there is something we have to learn from the 20 years of gaming on Linux is help the ones committed to Linux, don't trust promices but results.
Epic, like GOG, obviosuly say "maybe in the future". It the easy and safe thing to say. But in the meantime they hurt the Linux gaming community. And yes it does include GOG, just have a look at how many games with Linux version on Steam do not have one on GOG? The usual explaination from devs is their games use galaxy for multiplayer, which on GOG is a perfectly normal thing. So sorry to disappoint the ones saying "We still have GOG", that's wrong. By the way, I'm not anti-GOG, I buy a large number of games there. GOG have lots of good points, but Linux support is not one of them.
Likewise, I'm very sad about how much the Linux gaming community welcomed the Epic store while it not supporting Linux. We certainly made welcomed but undeserved advertisement to a anti-Linux store. We should add to the "no tux, no bux" the "no tux, no post".
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Nevertheless Jan 2, 2019
Quoting: TheBardIt was obvious from the beginning Linux was not a priority. How many times did we have false hope like this? How many projects on kickstarter did not deliver the promised Linux version? We had GOG telling us "soon" for years.
There are developers and store that care about Linux. We should focus on these ones because they make efforts towards making Linux a solid gaming platform. But more importantly there are many others that don't give a shit. Those ones we should just ignore them.
If there is something we have to learn from the 20 years of gaming on Linux is help the ones committed to Linux, don't trust promices but results.
Epic, like GOG, obviosuly say "maybe in the future". It the easy and safe thing to say. But in the meantime they hurt the Linux gaming community. And yes it does include GOG, just have a look at how many games with Linux version on Steam do not have one on GOG? The usual explaination from devs is their games use galaxy for multiplayer, which on GOG is a perfectly normal thing. So sorry to disappoint the ones saying "We still have GOG", that's wrong. By the way, I'm not anti-GOG, I buy a large number of games there. GOG have lots of good points, but Linux support is not one of them.
Likewise, I'm very sad about how much the Linux gaming community welcomed the Epic store while it not supporting Linux. We certainly made welcomed but undeserved advertisement to a anti-Linux store. We should add to the "no tux, no bux" the "no tux, no post".
I still think Linux support would be a logical step for at least Mr. Sweeney. If they were consequent, they'd have to see Linux is the only truely open gaming platform/system left on the planet, but it seems they are not...
I didn't notice the Linux community advertizing the Epic store. I noticed the Linux community discussing about Linux support of the Epic store, and asking Epic for it.
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: F.UltraAll very true. And of course they could also form some sort of alliance with one member of such a small circle of shareholders. So really it's very hard to tell from the outside just who has control. But I think we can suspect that Tencent wouldn't have accumulated that much of an interest in one company if they didn't have some hope of controlling it . . . so I guess we really don't know if they have control or not, but we can be pretty sure they were giving it a try, whether they succeeded or failed.Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: ecosvaldoEven IF their store supported Linux, it still will not get me to use their platform. Why? One word... Tencent. They ALMOST have controlling interest in Epic Games (around 48 - 49%)!Ehhh, for practical purposes that's controlling unless there are no small shareholders at all. I know, in theory you need 50%+1, but in practice you need more votes than will be cast against you, and there will always be a fair number of shareholders who don't get the memos or aren't interested and don't vote their shares. So 48% is plenty to win any plausible vote. You can often have control with 30% or so!
Epic is however a private company and not a public one so the other 51.6% is most likely owned by the founders or some other investors, but more important for the question at hand is that it's owned by a small circle of people so there will not bee a situation where some shareholders don't get the memo or aren't interested.
For public companies it's quite often (for the big ones) to have several share classes where the one listed on an exchange have either no or very little voting rights. One example is Google where Page and Brin owns 59.16% of the votes due to them owning a lot of the B class shares (their A class gives 1 vote, B class gives 10 votes and C class gives zero votes where only the A and C classes are publicly traded).
Edited to add: If the info Kristian cites is correct, they don't . . . or didn't at that time, anyhow. Or, Sweeney could be kidding himself. The emphasis on seven firms seems a bit off, makes it sound like oh, Tencent is just one small player among many . . . but they can't all have bought a 40% stake! One way or another, it's interesting information. Nobody's going in big like that without anticipation of payoff. Presumably a big deal like that was put together in anticipation of some major move by Epic which would cost a lot of money but have big profit potential . . . such as, say, creating a game store that could really grab some market share from Steam.
Perhaps a pity we have little choice but to be agin' it.
Well they also got two board members in the deal so they have _some_ control over Epic that is not just seen in the voting rights, this is the problem with private companies that the insight is close to zero.
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Quoting: NeverthelessQuoting: iiariQuoting: NeverthelessWhy not purchase games cheaper on Epic? It will not defeat Steam, but it can hurt it.Unless I've missed something, absolutely no one in this coming Store War has claimed Epic offerings will be cheaper for the *consumer*. Increased $ for the devs, yes, but no one has even made any symbolic lip service as to how the consumer benefits here. And usually, with exclusives, that implies higher prices too...
I would offer a little cheaper on Epic if were a developer, because I'd get more money of games sold there.
Edit: Of course, exclusives are always cheapest on the only store they are sold. ;-)
Such a move however could risk upsetting your potential buyers on Steam (or the other platforms) forcing you to lower your prices there as well.
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