Re: I bet Remedy regrets that deal now...

On Wed, 12 Jun 2024 09:44:21 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 11/06/2024 20:41, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Tue, 11 Jun 2024 08:45:00 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
 

On 10/06/2024 23:38, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Same. Again, it doesn't help that Epic doesn't really do much to
broadcast its exclusives. And many people, they hear a game is on
Epic, they go, "Oh, well, I'll just wait until its on Steam", and then
forget the game exists until it arrives on Valve's platform.

>
That's certainly my attitude, the days when I just had to have a game
are long gone. It's the same with all the freebies they give out.
There's some that I look at and wouldn't mind playing but as yet nothing
that I've thought I want that so much that I'll sign up with Epic.

 
I have an account with them and grab the games, but I don't actually
play any of them on Epic. I like to think that, somehow, I'm costing
Epic money by doing so. ;-)
 
Epic burned a lot of goodwill with gamers with how it handled the Epic
Game store and I don't think it ever will fully recover from that
blow. It was bad enough that it was seen as an unnecessary product
that existed only for Epic's benefit. And it didn't help that Epic had
made a number of anti-PC gaming decisions and statements in years
previous. Badmouthing Valve, who was -fairly or not- seen as the
darling of PC Gaming didn't help either. But then locking games behind
years-long exclusivity contracts (and not backing down when it was
clear how unpopular this move was) was the final straw.
 
AFAIK, the Epic Game Store remains an unprofitable money-sink. The
latest estimates I've seen say it isn't expected to start seeing
positive revenue until 2027 (about five years later than originally
anticipated). A lot of that pain could have been avoided had Epic not
gone into the market so bullishly, or had shown some more appreciation
for their consumers.
 

>
Part of what pees me off about Epic is the way they've tried to portray
themselves as the pro-PC games guys who are been bullied by the likes of
Valve and Apple. Do they really think that consumers are in general that
stupid*.
>
Their approach also seemed rather simplistic in that they used giveaways
and exclusives to get people to their store front but their really
wasn't any incentive to stay there. Why would I switch from Steam?

Which, ultimately, was Epic's biggest sin. Their client offers nothing
over Valve's, and the inertia of switching just wasn't worth the
effort. They've tried desperately to overcome this; it's what the
weekly freebies are all about, after all. They want to build up
everybody's library on Epic because one of the biggest reasons to stay
on Steam is "that's where all my games are".

But Steam still has a  vastly superior storefront, and innumerable
features such as home streaming, the workshop, forums, voice chat (and
a solid gambling infrastructure)... given the choice, gamers prefer to
PLAY their games on Steam. And so when it comes to actually BUYING a
new game, they buy it where they're going to play it: Steam.

Epic's attitude -their savior of PC gaming messianic complex, their
exclusives, their picking fights with their competitors- would all be
ignored if they actually invested in creating a client that gave
players what they wanted. Its lackluster feature-set was barely
forgiveable when it was released in 2018 (after all, unlike Valve,
they didn't have to trial-and-error their way into finding out what
worked; they could have just copied Steam). Six years later, the EGS'
lack of feature-parity with Steam (or even UPlay!), much less offering
anything innovative is beyond embarassing. It's an insult to their
customers.

*The impression I get is that a lot of top executives really do think
that I've done really well so I must be intelligent, our customers have
done no where near as well so they must be stupid as should be treated
accordingly.

The unfortunate fact of the matter that we as customers ARE that
stupid. "Company X does horrific thing" rarely results in more than a
brief outrage before people go back to buying their products again
(assuming they even stopped whilst moaning about it). Rarely will
consumers actually follow up with a proper boycott, and video-gamers
are the least scrupled of the lot.

So, "Do Evil Thing", that may or may not be followed by a meaningless
non-apology is all you need to keep the money flowing in. Customers
almost never expect more, and will happily swallow any bullshit thrown
their way. And, no, I'm sure I'm just as guilty of this sort of idiocy
as the next. So I'm sure that it is hard for executives NOT to believe
their customers are morons. We sure act like idiots.