The war of the PC stores is getting ugly, as Metro Exodus becomes a timed Epic Store exclusive

Quoting: TobyGornowGeez... I never said Valve asked or paid for exclusive, they worked as a mandatory gateway for consumer without needing to pay a dime for it thanks to their quasi-monopolistic position, and Yakuza was just a prime example that I bought on Humble. If I have to register my game on this platform, only this platform, and I don't have a choice about it if I want to play it, it become an exclusive for this platform in my books, Valve paying for it or not, am I right ?

IMO nor Epic nor Steam is the culprit here, Deep Silver is the filthy prostitute, is that clear ? But you can't blame Epic to take action in order to get a slice of the pie, it's just simple business, they are paying to get a product the others don't have in order to get more customers, again & again & again you are right 100% about the disgusting move but it's business 101. Valve didn't have to pay or ask for exclusives in their store, they were coming by themselves (hence Yakuza 0 example), Tencent is just cranking up the heat and it's just fair game, if valve wants exclusive they will NOW have to pay for it.

Please, I beg you, stop saying Valve is nice or nicer than Epic it hurts. They are crooks with their 30% cut, Quasi-monopolistic positon for years, they killed physical distribution with more than aggressive pricing, Steam can be considered as a DRM locking down pc gaming to their platform, and let's wait and see if source 2 Engine games will be distributed outside Steam, announcement has been made 2 years ago when they were still undisputed. Unreal Engine is free to use too don't know about their distribution politics tho.

Let's time decide if Steam is a lesser evil than Epic. And again I'm on your side, I hate exclusives, I was pissed when I learned that Bloodborne was not coming to PC.

There's a difference between a developer independently choosing to release exclusively on the platform with the largest customer base, and being paid for exclusivity. One is a regrettable but legitimate logistical decision, the other is an active effort to harm the customer for a cheap buck.

Yes, it's bad that Deep Silver sold out their own customers for bribe money, but Epic is also bad for offering the bribe, something you seem unwilling to condemn them for. They're BOTH at fault here.

You also seem to begrudge Valve just because they're large. But they got to that point on their own merits, by building up a quality service, not bribery. Stronger competition would be good to keep Valve from getting complacent, but it should be by offering a legitimately better service, not by dragging the market through the mud.

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TobyGornowMaybe the Orange box was the wrong example ( still an exclusive, You could install Half life 1 without Steam ), take Yakuza 0 instead : you cannot buy it physically, in any way, even if you could you'll be kindly invited to connect on Steam. You can buy it on Humble or elsewhere, sure... and activate it on Steam. In any case, you'll end up on Steam. That's why I said it's time that Valve gets a taste of his own medicine, there is a lot of exclusive on Steam that are not Valve's IP.

That's the publisher's fault for not releasing it anywhere else. That's completely different from what Epic is doing. Other devs release their games on multiple stores.

Same thing dude, Yakuza is tied to Steam as much as Exodus is tied (temporarily) to Epic store, that's simple exclusivity for me, Valve made us and dev captive for too long, today your a big publisher you have to put your catalog on Steam otherwise you'll sell peanuts.
And in Epic case, they just made a cash proposition to Deep silver that was accepted, it's just fair business against a competition using the same tools and again no emotions in business. I repeat it : Deep Silver should suffer a massive boycott of their games but it won't happen, people are sheep waiting to be shaved and then put down. Epic is not at fault here, they are just competing against an enemy in an almost monopolistic position and they need big guns in order to do it. Valve is not a Care Bear, they deserve some hard competition.

Compare it to the only supermarket in town. It has a good relationship with other, smaller stores in the neighborhood, and it even develops stuff usable by them too. Still it might be the only store who sells bananas in the whole area you live in. When someone else opens up a supermarket next to it and claims the whole banana market for itself (say for the next year, prunes is forever), you really think that's the same?

Man, thanks for dumbing it down for me... My Turn : Metro exodus bought on Amazon (or Wherever) and forced to be activated on Epic Store = Exclusivity / Yakuza 0 bought on Gog or Humble (or Wherever) forced to be activated on Steam = Exclusivity.
And because you like to play on words : They are not claiming the whole Banana market just a new variety they PAID for. And again, YOU are right those methods are digusting but common practices in retail or others market, Valve is no stranger to those.

Edit : The friendly local supermarket you described fu***ng killed physical distribution of Pc gaming, nice relationship if you ask me.

No dumbing down (sorry if that sounded like it) .. just trying to make myself clear.
The way I see it:
Valve invented online stores the way steam is. More and more developers and publishers marketed their games on Steam, because more and more gamers wanted to purchase their games on Steam. Some more online stores came up, mostly to publish their own games, but some offer third party games. Valve never gave anyone money to offer their games on Steam only. A lot of developers and publishers still choose to offer on Steam only, thats true, but this is not Valves doing. They are open to competition. They even develop tools, APIs and standards in an explicitly open fashion.
People say Valve needs competition, and it's true, but what Epic does is something different, because there is no competition for exclusive deals. They seek multiple micro monopolies, while talking about fairness and openness. If they can only be sustainable when beeing unfair, then Steam has to become more unfair to be able to compete. I don't want that!

Don't apologize, friendly discussion can be shaky.
I've got a problem with your unfair bit, why is it unfair ? For the customer, already agreed. For Valve ? Not sure. It's business, differentiation through product, nothing filthy or vicious in this, nothing unfair, they are imposing their rules as much as Valve imposed their for years.

True they developed tools and stuff but only in their interest at the end and it's easy to be open and friendly when you have almost no competition.Let's see about that in 2 years.

True, publisher are choosing whether or not they sell on Steam, but do they really have the choice not to if they want to sell big numbers and cover their expenses ? Don't think so. Steam became the mandatory platform and without asking and paying, thanks to their monopoly, got exclusive titles, how insidious.

Quoting: Smoke39

Quoting: TobyGornowGeez... I never said Valve asked or paid for exclusive, they worked as a mandatory gateway for consumer without needing to pay a dime for it thanks to their quasi-monopolistic position, and Yakuza was just a prime example that I bought on Humble. If I have to register my game on this platform, only this platform, and I don't have a choice about it if I want to play it, it become an exclusive for this platform in my books, Valve paying for it or not, am I right ?

IMO nor Epic nor Steam is the culprit here, Deep Silver is the filthy prostitute, is that clear ? But you can't blame Epic to take action in order to get a slice of the pie, it's just simple business, they are paying to get a product the others don't have in order to get more customers, again & again & again you are right 100% about the disgusting move but it's business 101. Valve didn't have to pay or ask for exclusives in their store, they were coming by themselves (hence Yakuza 0 example), Tencent is just cranking up the heat and it's just fair game, if valve wants exclusive they will NOW have to pay for it.

Please, I beg you, stop saying Valve is nice or nicer than Epic it hurts. They are crooks with their 30% cut, Quasi-monopolistic positon for years, they killed physical distribution with more than aggressive pricing, Steam can be considered as a DRM locking down pc gaming to their platform, and let's wait and see if source 2 Engine games will be distributed outside Steam, announcement has been made 2 years ago when they were still undisputed. Unreal Engine is free to use too don't know about their distribution politics tho.

Let's time decide if Steam is a lesser evil than Epic. And again I'm on your side, I hate exclusives, I was pissed when I learned that Bloodborne was not coming to PC.

There's a difference between a developer independently choosing to release exclusively on the platform with the largest customer base, and being paid for exclusivity. One is a regrettable but legitimate logistical decision, the other is an active effort to harm the customer for a cheap buck.

Yes, it's bad that Deep Silver sold out their own customers for bribe money, but Epic is also bad for offering the bribe, something you seem unwilling to condemn them for. They're BOTH at fault here.

You also seem to begrudge Valve just because they're large. But they got to that point on their own merits, by building up a quality service, not bribery. Stronger competition would be good to keep Valve from getting complacent, but it should be by offering a legitimately better service, not by dragging the market through the mud.

They're large because they eat a lot and I don't hate nor love them, no grudge, just stating that Valve is not what it seems to be, it's a business venture generating billions, the same thing goes for Epic. You are not bad for proposing an exclusive partnership, accepting it knowing you will alienate your customer base is. And except a minority like us, who is harmed ? the majority won't care a bit. Fallout 76 still sold, people don't care, no harm done.

Last message for me on this subject, we won't agree for sure, I'm thinking cold hard business decision since the beginning, exclusive distribution is what it means for me, paid or not, voluntarily or not, and maybe I'm out of place on a forum so attached to Valve for good reasons. I don't pretend I'm right but for me it's just another day in the global market where Valve found a new motivated challenger to the throne.


Last edited by TobyGornow on 31 January 2019 at 1:16 am UTC

Quoting: TobyGornowMaybe the Orange box was the wrong example ( still an exclusive, You could install Half life 1 without Steam ), take Yakuza 0 instead : you cannot buy it physically, in any way, even if you could you'll be kindly invited to connect on Steam. You can buy it on Humble or elsewhere, sure... and activate it on Steam. In any case, you'll end up on Steam. That's why I said it's time that Valve gets a taste of his own medicine, there is a lot of exclusive on Steam that are not Valve's IP.
..
That's the publisher's fault for not releasing it anywhere else. That's completely different from what Epic is doing. Other devs release their games on multiple stores.
..
Same thing dude, Yakuza is tied to Steam as much as Exodus is tied (temporarily) to Epic store, that's simple exclusivity for me, Valve made us and dev captive for too long, today your a big publisher you have to put your catalog on Steam otherwise you'll sell peanuts.

Here's a few comments and opinions of mine based on the discussion so far. And a bit of disagreement with TobyGornow regarding Yakuza 0.

Epic store running exclusives, presumably via bribes (e.g. contracts beneficial to developers) is detrimental to consumers. This is very similar to Console Exclusivity and various walled-garden stores, e.g. Windows Store, Apple Store. Lots of big businesses behave this way and much of it is very bad for consumers and society at large (looking hard at Amazon).

However, a proportion of consumers are willing to put up with it. Presumably a pretty big proportion, else these big businesses would have to change their strategies to garner customer favour. I'm one of the more difficult customers who isn't happy to just accept the status quo. I don't like Amazon's business practices and I deliberately looked for an alternative source for a product I wanted earlier today, found it, bought it, *and* it was cheaper than Amazon (haha). If only more people did like me, we could turn things around.

On the Console side, I don't own a current-generation console and I don't like Console Exclusives. I also don't like games with micro-transactions and similar technologies, e.g. loot-box gambling, insidiously designed to get customers to part with even more of their hard-earned money. What do I do about it? Well, I don't buy the Console or the Exclusive. I am disciplined in my purchase decisions.

Epic store running exclusives puts me off their store. Sure, it is a typical business practice, but it is not one that I like and it makes me want to avoid them. Hopefully, they will fail with such choices, and consumers will reap the benefits, e.g. have choice of store (but I guess that is unlikely, given how sheep-like most consumers are).

Epic store is not supporting Linux. Well this is even more reason for me and most Linux gamers to not use the store and not give them any of our money.

Getting onto Yakuza 0 and Humble store-front and the fact that you get a Steam key for the game from Humble. This is not the fault of Steam. The developers of Yakuza 0 chose Steam as their preferred online store. Humble is able to provide DRM-Free Downloads, itch.io keys, GOG keys (e.g. Witcher 3), Uplay keys (e.g. Assassin's Creed Odyssey), and Steam keys. The fact that you bought Yakuza 0 from Humble and you got a Steam key - It's because that is the key that the developers wanted you to have. It is not "Steam being Exclusive". - That is the disagreement I have with you on this.

Mentioning the various game key stores: I see itch.io, GOG, Steam, and Humble DRM-Free as being relatively consumer and developer friendly. In each of those stores, they support Linux games, which is good for us, Linux gamers. In some cases, you can choose the store you want to use, because the developer has put the game onto multiple stores. I don't blame the store, I blame the developer if it is only on one (of these stores). Steam store might hold a somewhat monopolistic position, but in my opinion they don't really abuse it.

With the current situation with Metro Exodus - I own the previous two Metro games (native Linux titles on Steam) and I wanted to see Exodus on Linux. The fact that it is going to be an Exclusive on Epic store (bad strike 1), and the fact that it isn't available for Linux (bad strike 2) - Well, I almost certainly won't be getting it. My money will go to more deserving developers and stores for different game titles. Hopefully 4A Games will see the error of their ways.

I am also on the side of this is a d!ck move by Epic and Deep Silver. As mentioned by many others Epic is bribing Deep Silver to screw customers.

And while I am generally anti-big business specifically because of them more often than not screwing the customer, if anything Valve is also hurt by this announcement. How much money has Valve spent on this title through marketing costs and pre-orders. Not to mention that valve will be hosting forums and update servers for this game even though they can not sell it for another year... earning no money. (past what they already earned in pre-orders.)

I think I read somewhere that the Epic Store has no forums... If this is true, where do you think users are going to turn to for help? Most likely, steam forums. And they will go there because most gamers already have an account there. (One of the better aspects of steam is that with your steam id you do not need to create a login on every developer's individual site.)

Customers are hurt, Valve is hurt, may Epic burn through all its reserves so they die off as soon as teenagers ween themselves off of fortnight as a sign for devs to never play the exclusive card again.

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TobyGornowMaybe the Orange box was the wrong example ( still an exclusive, You could install Half life 1 without Steam ), take Yakuza 0 instead : you cannot buy it physically, in any way, even if you could you'll be kindly invited to connect on Steam. You can buy it on Humble or elsewhere, sure... and activate it on Steam. In any case, you'll end up on Steam. That's why I said it's time that Valve gets a taste of his own medicine, there is a lot of exclusive on Steam that are not Valve's IP.

That's the publisher's fault for not releasing it anywhere else. That's completely different from what Epic is doing. Other devs release their games on multiple stores.

Same thing dude, Yakuza is tied to Steam as much as Exodus is tied (temporarily) to Epic store, that's simple exclusivity for me, Valve made us and dev captive for too long, today your a big publisher you have to put your catalog on Steam otherwise you'll sell peanuts.
And in Epic case, they just made a cash proposition to Deep silver that was accepted, it's just fair business against a competition using the same tools and again no emotions in business. I repeat it : Deep Silver should suffer a massive boycott of their games but it won't happen, people are sheep waiting to be shaved and then put down. Epic is not at fault here, they are just competing against an enemy in an almost monopolistic position and they need big guns in order to do it. Valve is not a Care Bear, they deserve some hard competition.

Compare it to the only supermarket in town. It has a good relationship with other, smaller stores in the neighborhood, and it even develops stuff usable by them too. Still it might be the only store who sells bananas in the whole area you live in. When someone else opens up a supermarket next to it and claims the whole banana market for itself (say for the next year, prunes is forever), you really think that's the same?

Man, thanks for dumbing it down for me... My Turn : Metro exodus bought on Amazon (or Wherever) and forced to be activated on Epic Store = Exclusivity / Yakuza 0 bought on Gog or Humble (or Wherever) forced to be activated on Steam = Exclusivity.
And because you like to play on words : They are not claiming the whole Banana market just a new variety they PAID for. And again, YOU are right those methods are digusting but common practices in retail or others market, Valve is no stranger to those.

Edit : The friendly local supermarket you described fu***ng killed physical distribution of Pc gaming, nice relationship if you ask me.

No dumbing down (sorry if that sounded like it) .. just trying to make myself clear.
The way I see it:
Valve invented online stores the way steam is. More and more developers and publishers marketed their games on Steam, because more and more gamers wanted to purchase their games on Steam. Some more online stores came up, mostly to publish their own games, but some offer third party games. Valve never gave anyone money to offer their games on Steam only. A lot of developers and publishers still choose to offer on Steam only, thats true, but this is not Valves doing. They are open to competition. They even develop tools, APIs and standards in an explicitly open fashion.
People say Valve needs competition, and it's true, but what Epic does is something different, because there is no competition for exclusive deals. They seek multiple micro monopolies, while talking about fairness and openness. If they can only be sustainable when beeing unfair, then Steam has to become more unfair to be able to compete. I don't want that!

Don't apologize, friendly discussion can be shaky.
I've got a problem with your unfair bit, why is it unfair ? For the customer, already agreed. For Valve ? Not sure. It's business, differentiation through product, nothing filthy or vicious in this, nothing unfair, they are imposing their rules as much as Valve imposed their for years.

True they developed tools and stuff but only in their interest at the end and it's easy to be open and friendly when you have almost no competition.Let's see about that in 2 years.

True, publisher are choosing whether or not they sell on Steam, but do they really have the choice not to if they want to sell big numbers and cover their expenses ? Don't think so. Steam became the mandatory platform and without asking and paying, thanks to their monopoly, got exclusive titles, how insidious.

What should Valve have done to be free of monopolism in your eyes? Found their own adversary and gift it to someone?
But you're right in one thing: The word unfair does not hit it. Nothing that Epic does is illegal. Exclusive deals are just customer unfriendly, especially in the long run. I think that kind of practice puts pressure on the market and only leads to more of the same kind.
And therefore yes, we'll see how Valve will react to this. I just hope they'll not feel driven to do the same!

Quoting: TobyGornowValve didn't have to pay or ask for exclusives in their store, they were coming by themselves (hence Yakuza 0 example), Tencent is just cranking up the heat and it's just fair game, if valve wants exclusive they will NOW have to pay for it.

Valve DON'T WANT exclusives.

Quoting: TobyGornowPlease, I beg you, stop saying Valve is nice or nicer than Epic it hurts. They are crooks with their 30% cut, Quasi-monopolistic positon for years, they killed physical distribution with more than aggressive pricing, Steam can be considered as a DRM locking down pc gaming to their platform, and let's wait and see if source 2 Engine games will be distributed outside Steam, announcement has been made 2 years ago when they were still undisputed. Unreal Engine is free to use too don't know about their distribution politics tho.

They are nicer. They aren't crooks. Unreal Engine isn't free, btw.

Quoting: stretch611I think I read somewhere that the Epic Store has no forums... If this is true, where do you think users are going to turn to for help? Most likely, steam forums. And they will go there because most gamers already have an account there. (One of the better aspects of steam is that with your steam id you do not need to create a login on every developer's individual site.)

You mention one aspect of a wider strategy employed by Sweeney. Ofc we here focus on PC only, but we better not forget that Epic is moving is similar fashion on Android where they circumvent Google store (but really, any other store out there) and instead distribute their own apk for fortnite (maybe he plans to turn that in a store too).

That is called leeching. Sweeney is filling his mouth with words like open platforms and freedom of choice but that that isn't really what free mean. Free platforms come to be when companies that make billions reinvest that money in features that improve the ecosystem for everybody not just people that pass through their store. Whilst for freedom of choice one should not even explain why it is the antithesis of exclusives. If he was serious about freedom he would run a store with he same philosophy as Steam and instead challenge Valve (or google if he dares) to open even more their ecosystems.

He knows all to well that users will go on Steam forums to get help as he know that they will go to Google for any issue they have with their apk (be them original or cracked). In fact he counts on that. His philosophy is to exploit open platforms to take everything and give nothing in return. But when it comes to walled gardens like Apple and iStore he's diligently paying his 30% fee without complaining or lamenting exploitation. Had he been even a little consistent with what he says, he would not had landed on that platform at all.


Last edited by Mal on 31 January 2019 at 5:44 pm UTC

Also, another thing I want to highlight here (again), account security on Steam is much acceptably robust. Ok, it maybe flaw here and there but if you not installed dubious/malware cheat software and at least 2FA by email, you considered almost secured. itch.io also do have acceptable security.

I won't touch EGS because 1 thing. Losing account because of hacking.
Imaigine someone account with 20-30 games in the library, hacked and lost....

Quoting: TobyGornowPlease, I beg you, stop saying Valve is nice or nicer than Epic it hurts.

Sure Valve is not perfect and they have to up their game, but I beg to differ: they are a lot nicer than Epic. A LOT NICER!

What we may be exposed to, with what Epic is proposing is this:
PC exclusives = More hacking = Lost sales for developers = Studios going out of business = Less games published on PC = Back to square one in the early 2000's when PC gaming was trying to survive.

Might be exagerated, but as simple as that. Valve understood that and Epic now risks destroying it. All Deep Silver had to do was sell Metro: Exodus on both stores. 50$ on Epic and 60$ on Steam. Now that is competition!

Edit: I will never install an Epic launcher on any rig, even if there's a Linux client, as long as this is Epic's strategy.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 1 February 2019 at 5:44 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: dannielloIt could be possible that Valve is preparing Steam Machine 2, but after failure of first initiative (with Dell cooperation) - it could be difficult. Also let be honest - Valve is too small company to subsidize Linux PC console that will be sold cheaper than production cost. Sony/Microsoft/Google/Apple are big enough to subsidize unprofitable initiatives for years - without economic threat for company, because they have plenty of income from other sources.

You're probably right about the size issue, but that makes me wonder about something:
Does anybody know just how big Valve is, or how big a war chest they might be sitting on? Because they're not publicly traded, I don't think they have to tell anyone much of anything. Even their competitors may not really have much of a handle on it. Anyone have any idea?

Figures I have seen suggest Steam has about $5BN annual revenue, with Valve's share being $1.5BN. Headcount suggests $200MN personnel/overhead costs plus the infrastructure costs to run the Steam platform. I have no idea what that might cost to run, as I have no data on the throughput and latency requirements.

But you could guess that Valve operational profit is in the order of $1BN annually at 2018 rates. What they do with it I don't know, but I assume that it is not all paid out to the shareholders. Some will go into their warchest/corporate investments, some will go into non-operational expenses ( some R&D, sponsoring, outreach marketing, developer support etc ).

I think you can assume they have a comfortable financial reserve, and the ability to suffer significant sales reductions while still being operationally solvent.

On the other hand, Epic are reported to have $3BN annual operational profit from Fortnight and Unreal Engine, so they can't be seen as an underdog. They are definitely more focused on the developers viewpoint than Valve, at present, given their 12% take. Whether that is good or bad for the market as a whole remains to be seen.

It would probably be wrong to see Epic as anti-consumer simply because they are making commercial decisions to build their store presence against a strong incumbent. There will be a lot of people ( judging by the "Internet Outrage" over M:E ) that don't want to support a company that breaks their idea of how gaming should be, but Epic do have a player base of 125m who don't think they suck. And I expect many Windows gamers will just shrug and buy the game from the Epic store if they particularly want it.

Linux gamers have less reason to like the Epic Store, or Origin, or UPlay etc, because any ability to access games through them is not guaranteed in any way. As I recently acquired a large SSD, I invested some time setting up Wine Prefixes to access EA Origin and the Epic Store. Both can be made to work, after a fashion, as can some of the games ( Subnautica on Epic - as a free game - Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 3 on Origin from old Windows purchases ), but other games are more difficult, and there is clearly no support or any guarantee of games continuing to work.

I certainly would not buy anything at full price on these non-native stores, but might take a risk of a few £$€ on discounted games. So, Metro Exodus I will be unlikely to get until it reappears on Steam, particularly as I haven't finished 2033 and Last Light yet ( too many games, not enough time... ). If it is not native, maybe not even then.