All signs point to that program being a failure for them, which is why the exclusivity offers and announcements started drying up, but I guess this is them trying a revised strategy.
Not a failure at all. Operating at a loss for years to start up is not uncommon, and this was the case for Amazon, Netflix, Uber, Spotify and many others. Eventually they have to wind down their investments as they move towards breaking even and becoming profitable. In 2019, Epic had a specific roadmap on dropping the aggressive pursuit of exclusives and estimated that it would take them 5 years to reach profitability.
I would guess they were assuming the failure is that it's not attracting customers. Nothing wrong with operating at a loss, but you need something to show for it (en excelent product, a healthily growing userbase) -- it's hard to imagine EGS ticking any box with the exclusivity deals they've been getting. Personally I can't recall a single exclusive that they have, other than Fortnite and Ubisoft (which seems to have ended).
Going by their annual reports, the total revenue from third-party sales increased every year. That being the case even past the decrease in exclusive offers may suggest that their winding down strategy is working.
Your examples of companies operating at a loss for years are all examples of the hockey stick graph of exponential, self-sustaining growth, but I don't see any indication that that's happening for Epic. Anecdotally, do you know anyone who's stuck with EGS over other options without Epic's thumb staying on the scales (exclusives, freebies, or discount coupons where Epic eats the cost)? Because I know I don't. And their own infographics that they can cherry-pick to make them look as good as possible don't back up exponential growth either.
Epic tends to have better regional prices and supports more currencies than Steam, so I do know of people who go for it just by virtue of this. Also, I wouldn’t completely disregard the freebies, because some of them probably cost them nothing, like the offers of Fortnite items for buying games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The Ubisoft games on Epic are activated on Ubisoft Connect and do not require Epic, so in that case there’s no downside even to those who dislike the launcher.
I don’t want to support their platform. Exclusivity deals are bad for gamers and only lines pockets. Terrible customer support and security. And also Tim Sweeney and Epic’s overall enshittification of games through loot boxes and season passes.
Right. I get what you’re saying and I agree with it too. But how would claiming their free games count as supporting them? Wouldn’t it strictly be a net loss for them in terms of money and bandwidth?
As we do not have a community on Lemmy that I know of, here is a complete explanation of their service, their misdoings and more. This is pretty in-depth with references to other postings as well as articles and sources.
They are currently losing money with their strategies either way, because exclusivity is expensive, free games, too. Luckily they still have the Fortnite money…
But they are winning something else. User numbers. Claimed games as ‘purchases’ on their storefront. Active users per month. User binding to their ecosystem by having more and more games in their library, for ‘free’. This looks good for stakeholders ready to invest, or publishers to accept exclusivity deals in their future.
And with time, the attrition towards their store will reduce so more and more become paying customers with their dubious tactics.
I mean their launcher is so bad it should be considered malware but I just use Heroic instead and only go there for the free games to help make them fail faster.
Oh fuck off you big baby, we don’t need people like you in every discussion about free games on EGS, we get it, you’re mad that someone dared stand up to Gaben and his monopoly, go bitch somewhere else and let people enjoy the free games.
I mean, you’re stuck playing on consoles with version 1.0 if that’s your criteria so I don’t know why we should care about your opinion of PC launchers.
GOG does not requires its launcher to install, launch, or play a game.
GOG does not require an Internet connection to install, launch, or play a game.
Of course you require an Internet connection to download the offline installer. How the hell do you expect to get it otherwise? For them to ship a disk to you? Lol. Downloading it isn’t DRM; that’s a delivery method.
You’re the one who said that needing an internet connection to be able to install a game is a strong form of DRM
I did say that. You only need an Internet connection download the offline installer (because how else are you gonna get it). Once you have the installer, though, you can install the game completely offline anytime you want.
I never contradicted myself; I was being very clear. You’re just being nitpicky and shifting the goalposts repeatedly.
Yeah, you were very clear that needing the internet to install a game is DRM, so as I said, only physical media is DRM free so I don’t know why you’re arguing about PC gaming since you can only play console games.
But I didn’t move it though, I just quoted you and you’re the one who’s trying to pretend it wasn’t what you meant… I don’t think you understand what “moving the goalpost” means…
I disputed this, asking if it requires any form of Internet connection to install, launch, or play the game. Instead of responding to my dispute with actual reasoning, you turned to avoiding the issue entirely by shifting the focus from backing up your claim to making an entirely new claim attempting to discredit my definition of DRM. That’s called dodging the issue, FYI.
In other words, if you can’t beat an argument, try to invalidate it. Basic of the basics in the rulebook of debating.
Then, when I defined DRM for you, you asked, “How do you install a game from GOG without an internet connection?” I answered by stating you use the offline installer. Which doesn’t require an Internet connection to use, meaning you don’t require the Internet to install it. You also are not required to have an Internet connection to launch the game or to then proceed to play the game after having launched it.
When I described this to you, you completely ignored that answer and acted like I had stated you do require an Internet connection:
YOU: How do you install a game from GOG without an internet connection?
ME: You download the backup installer after you buy the game. I save mine on an external hard drive.
YOU: Ok so how do you download the backup installer without an internet connection?
ME: I never said you could …
The fact is that downloading the offline installer is not DRM at all. It’s an offline, backup installer: you only need to download it once and then you’ll have it available whenever you want to install said game. Requiring the Internet to download an offline, backup installer that once you download you never have to download again is no different than requiring fuel for you car or a time expenditure for public transport in order to go pick up a physical copy of a game from a store across town.
In any case, all of this is so completely detracted by this point from the original topic of you claiming the game The Outer Worlds is available, DRM-free, on Epic Games Store, that it’s quite frankly become really ridiculous. It’s been done to hell and back, as is my patience with this absurdity of a discussion.
TL;DR of this whole discussion: When I point out that you said that requiring an internet connection is a form of DRM and it therefore means that GOG basically has DRM in place because it requires an internet connection (even if it’s just once to download the installer, just like for Epic DRM free games) you get mad…
By your definition, the only way to truly own a game and for it to be DRM free is to buy a physical copy and then, as I mentioned, you’re DRM free only as long as you don’t want a patched version.
Again, quoting you:
“It doesn’t require any form of Internet connection to install, launch, or play?
With all due respect, if the answer is “it does” to either one of those questions, then that’s still a very strong form of DRM.”
If an internet connection is required to install the game, BY YOUR DEFINITION, it’s a form of DRM. You still need to download the install file from GOG at least once, which requires you logging in to your account, therefore there’s DRM in place. You wouldn’t be able to play a game you bought on GOG if you didn’t have the data necessary to download it contrary to a true DRM free game.
Those stores don’t challenge the monopoly, so they don’t trigger anyone. They get praised but you’ll have a hard time finding anyone who regularly uses them, let alone as their main gaming platform.
Yup, EGS doesn’t get a pass for sucking just because it’s an underdog. The store experience sucks, the company behind it actively avoids supporting the Steam Deck (valid business reasons imo, but it still sucks), and they have stupid exclusives that just delay when I get to play games on my platform of choice.
EGS sucking doesn’t make Steam good, it just means EGS sucks.
While GOG’s client kinda sucks, it’s better than EGS and their games are DRM-free. So I’ll give them a pass on their client kinda sucking and not porting to my preferred platform, Linux. I’d just GOG in a heartbeat if they gave half as much attention to Linux as Steam (I don’t want much, just officially endorse Heroic and/or port Galaxy).
I keep my fingers crossed that one day GoG Galaxy will be given a developer or two instead of a single untrained monkey. I like the concept, I like some of the features and love that I can view all my libraries in one place, but man it’s so janky and there’s no support from the company at all and they don’t fix issues or work on anything new for it and what they do add is done at a glacial pace.
Meanwhile, Valve keeps rolling out new features, such as:
unified shopping cart - love it! I can add games on mobile and review on my PC
private games - doesn’t benefit me, but I guess it’s cool
separate gift and personal purchases in one transaction - I often buy a bunch of games at once and send some to my wife/kids
proton, Steam input, year end review, etc
Sometimes it’s pretty stagnant, but overall it gets way more attention than any other client. All GOG needs to do is get like 5 full-time devs and Galaxy would be a much better client. They have the money (Witcher, Cyberpunk, etc), they just need to improve their client so people actually want to use it.
You’re mad that someone dared stand up to Gaben and his monopoly
You mean Tim Sweeny, the guy preaching about monopolistic practices while directing his company to take anticompetitive actions in a thinly-veiled attempt to take away consumers’ choice of storefront and create his own monopoly?
It’s more morally acceptable to pirate games than take free games off Epic Games Store. At least in the former case, I’m not supporting their campaign by being a statistic they can boast about.
EGS isn’t paying per download, they’re paying the developer an upfront cost to make the game a free offer regardless of how many copies get downloaded.
I stand corrected then if that’s the case. But also if more people download them (even if they don’t play them or buy on the store elsewhere) then they are likely to make more deals and spend more money :p
Yeah, but are you really active if you’re not even playing them. You’re just a number on some stats sheets for the store itself. I personally have no gripes with EGS myself, by the way. I’m just playing devil’s advocate on why even claiming the free games could become detrimental to EGS if you are one more inclined to want it’s downfall.
They only get what you give though. Plus I feel like the whole “oh no they’ll get my data” arguments for a lot of things pretty weak. Being one that briefly used to work in data science and adtech. They don’t know you personally, you’re just in a cohort of similar people. You’re not individually identifiable. Which is fine by me. I’d rather get given targeted ads (when they’re not blocked) than the absolute wild west of a mess ads were in the 90s and early 00s.
But you could just… not. Installing their software on your machine gives them file system access, soooo… maybe just pirate and get the game for free just the same.
People bitch way too much about EGS. Yeah, we get it, it’s not steam and the dude that runs it pissed in their Cheerios once. Claim the free fucking game or don’t.
Every single god damn time there’s a post about a good free game on EGS, there’s always some tool who’s gotta mention how bad EGS sucks and that they only play the finest Linux games available. They act like they are stuck up losers. Let’s be completely honest. Gaming on Linux still blows.
Nobody gives a shit about your Linux gaming. Nobody gives a shit if you like Steam more. Nobody gives a shit if you have a beef with Tim Sweeny.
It’s even worse when you’re old enough to remember the same kind of people that were complaining about Valve creating Steam and forcing them to download it in order to play their games and then complaining that non-Valve games were starting to depend on having Steam installed and having to download part of the game at a time when bandwidth sucked… The same kind of people were saying they would forever boycott Steam but today they’re made that someone tried to break the status quo again.
Huh, I actually never used Steam until it came to Linux. I switched back in 2010 or so, and before that I either downloaded games directly from the dev or bought disks.
I don’t understand what was wrong with that model. I remember buying Minecraft directly from the website back in 2012 or so, and I did the same with Factorio (2014?). I remember playing Starcraft 2 with its own launcher, which again I got through the website. The same is true for League of Legends.
I don’t get why everything has to be through some launcher, though I do appreciate what Steam is doing for the Linux community, so they have earned my business (if it wasn’t for Steam, I wouldn’t play nearly as many games). But from an overall gaming perspective, I agree that having such a dominant platform isn’t good, and I would probably buy from other stores if they offered a decent experience, but I’m not going to jump through hoops to play games.
That’s also an issue, but them becoming the default provider and having such a huge market share isn’t something that players should be happy about, they might be managed by someone that cares about players but Gaben could die tomorrow and get replaced by someone that doesn’t. Competition should be celebrated even if it’s not perfect.
Yup, I think I’ve downloaded like 5 and actually started like 3 (and haven’t put more than an hour on any). I’ve repurchaded far more games on Steam that I got free from Epic than I’ve actually played on EGS.
It takes like 30 sec of my time to click on the link and checkout on my phone. If it took much more than that, I wouldn’t bother.
I don’t know why I still bother. I guess somewhere deep down in my soul I think there’s a chance EGS will stop sucking, and at that point I’ll be glad to have the library. That hasn’t happened in the year or two that I’ve been claiming games, but I still do it anyway. Eh, whatever.
There’s some really good games they gave through the years and if you use a library aggregator like Galaxy 2.0 or Playnite you basically don’t notice what launcher it’s on…
I use Linux, so the convenience of switching Proton versions through Steam is worth buying the game again in most cases. I could use Heroic launcher, but the interface isn’t as nice and adding each game to Steam is tedious, especially on my Steam Deck (esp. since Steam has decent settings preconfigured in many cases).
So yeah, my laziness costs me some money. If EGS supported Linux, I’d probably buy some games from them. Likewise for GOG, but at least GOG has Linux builds of many games, so they occasionally get my money as well.
Good for the devs who need the money but as a customer Steam just provides more, and if not Steam, GOG is DRM-free and ItchIO enables smallers indies to get their games out there. Epic isn't even on my list of places to buy. The only thing I bought in Epic, funny enough, was Fortnite Save the World, and I didn't get much out of that.
You don’t need to give them any card details or real information, you don’t even need to use their launcher to play the games. It’s fine not to like them but don’t put down people who just want to play a free game!
I think you’re using the service wrong if that’s the state you’re ending up in afterwards.
Anyway, anything to do with them should be tagged with [Epic] so if your Lemmy client supports it then you can just filter/block all posts containing that string and never be bothered by them again!
store.epicgames.com
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