11mo ago

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford says his hopes on Epic Store were 'overly optimistic or misplaced'

www.tweaktown.com

Borderlands CEO says his hopes on Epic Store were 'overly optimistic or misplaced'

I'm genuinely shocked how much Epic poured into the store and it still lacks so much basic features. Sorting games is still extremely barebones, store is filled with NFT/crypto garbage, the store still looks like a college student's first front-end project, and last time I used the launcher to pick up free games (last year), it was still slow as hell. What were they doing in the past 5 years aside from dropping millions on exclusivity deals?

Epic is going to have to prioritize the store and try some new initiatives while also doubling down on earning pivotal exclusives if it is going to have a chance. I also hope other viable competitors arrive.

PC Gaming @lemmy.ca

alessandro @lemmy.ca

11mo ago

Borderlands CEO says his hopes on Epic Store were 'overly optimistic or misplaced'

www.tweaktown.com /news/100231/borderlands-ceo-says-his-hopes-on-epic-store-were-overly-optimistic-or-misplaced/index.html

122 comments

I see some larger publishers bemoan the fact that Epic hasn't caught on, but it should be pretty obvious why. Markets that favor the buyer more than they favor sellers will typically attract the largest user base, and the sellers don't have a choice to not sell where the buyers are.
Epic giving away free games is a nice buyer friendly action, but literally everything else they've done, from paid exclusives to poor client experience isn't favorable to buyers. They've created a market that no buyers want to use unless the product is free or literally not available anywhere else.
Giving publishers/devs better cuts is great, but it does nothing for you if all the buyers are on Steam instead.
- Advertising better cuts to publishers doesn't mean much when the price is the same across platforms. If epic was consistently 10% cheaper than steam it would get better traction.
  
  They do often have better sales, but you have to launch the store to know and personally I would rather pay the extra $1 to buy on Steam...
  
  They still have to sell for what the publisher/devs want to sell the game for, a bigger share goes to them if it's the same price as it is on Steam.
  
  They can't sell the games cheaper than steam as the steam's conditions doesn't let devs sell games on steam if the game is available for cheaper somewhere else.
- I always say the reason they give so many free games is because the real price is in having to use that goddamn launcher
  
  It does what it needs to do, you open it, your installed games list is on the left, click and play.
- I don't even get their free stuff. And if it's only epic, I won't even bother checking it out or well...ya know.
  
  I hope it’s okay to ask, because I am being genuine, but why is using the Epic Games Launcher such a deal breaker for you? I have Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, Xbox, Battle.net and I’m sure more that I’m forgetting and I honestly don’t mind at all. It’s never been an issue for me but I think that I’m in the minority on that so I was curious to hear your thoughts.
- I also think that developers/publishers don’t care about the % cut that much, they would rather just sell a lot of games. Which comes back to your point, the value proposition of EGS isn’t appealing to the buyer.
  It’s like I make a competition to Uber with better cuts and working conditions to drivers. That is nice, but if the consumer has to wait 25 mins for my taxi while the Uber is there immediately, than they will not pick me for the same price.
- I want to point out that Valve won't allow games to be sold on Steam and be cheaper anywhere else. With the lower cut Epic takes games could be cheaper there, but Valve uses their dominant market position to force developers to set the same price on other marketplaces if they want to also be on Steam, which is essentially required.
  I get some of the hate, but the "fuck Epic" crowd always annoy me. It's such an ignorant position. That said, I don't use the Epic store because it sucks to use. Fuck monopolies though. Steam has too much control. We need competition or we're going to suffer in the future.
  
  With the lower cut Epic takes games could be cheaper there, but Valve uses their dominant market position to force developers to set the same price on other marketplaces if they want to also be on Steam, which is essentially required.
  I've heard that brought up, but I've never seen actual proof of it. It clearly doesn't apply to sale prices though, because other stores basically always have lower sale prices than steam itself.
  
  Guild Wars 2 expansions are cheaper on the company’s storefront than on steam, without sales. Not sure if they get an MMO pass, but it’s not a hard and fast rule.
  
  As has been pointed out by many other people in this thread, this is untrue.
  If you are providing a Steam key, it has to be the same price as Steam. Otherwise, you can set whatever price you want (e.g. if you were selling on both Steam and Epic - like Borderlands 3, which frequently had sales on Epic where the price dropped below the Steam price)
  https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
  It's even fine to sell your Steam keys at a lower price in another place - as long as you're planning to have a similar sale on Steam at some similar time.
  It's OK to run a discount for Steam Keys on different stores at different times as long as you plan to give a comparable offer to Steam customers within a reasonable amount of time.
  TL;DR: Games sold on Epic could be any price they want. They're no different to Steam, in general, because that's what publishers choose.
Fuck Epic. I will never forgive them for buying Rocket League and ripping it away from my Linux library on steam. I will never do business with them, never play any of their games, never give them a dime, never even sign up to claim their free slop of the week. Fuck Epic with a cactus.
- I own the original CD release of Unreal Tournament 2004, made by Epic, it includes a native Linux installer on disc, you get the full game, and it worked fine.
  It makes me so sad that they did a complete 180 on this.
  
  My theory has always been they wanted to keep the door open for Microsoft if things just go under. When you think about it, they were struggling quite a bit in the early 2000's until gears. Microsoft really propped them up with that franchise, then they made fortnite, lost a lot of money until they pivoted to the BR mode and now they make millions every damn day.
- To be fair, Rocket League runs fine in Proton.
  Also, to be fair.....agreed. Fuck Epic.
- Tbh without epic I doubt the game would've survived 2020. If you recall, the whole fanbase was unhappy with how things were stale. Epic didn't improve anything obviously but the free to play did boost it's active nunber of players. Nevertheless fuck epic.
  
  Wasnt it already a PS+ game years before epic? It literally had millions of players on day one.
  I dropped it after my steam copy first time asked me to register an epic account, but till then I didn't see huge issues with the game apart from the DLC milking.
  
  I haven't played it in years, how is it doing now in 2024?
I like how many games they give away for free, but tbh I've never played any of them there. Some of those games I decided to buy later on Steam anyway just to do achievements (epic launcher doesn't have achievements, cards, any meaningful statistics, etc).
- Sorry if this comes across pedantic, but in case anybody isn't aware there are some games that offer Achievements (Alan Wake 2 is one I know).
  I do agree though, Epic just doesn't have the features Steam does. I don't think their barrage of free games idea is a bad one, but it feels like an afterthought when it's just not as fun to play them there. (Better Linux support would be nice too, at least there's Heroic.)
  
  They have achievements on all games, it's been the case for two years
  Edit: to be more specific, on all games on-boarded after March 9th 2023 (need to have the same achievements as on other platforms) and available at the dev's discretion since May 2022
- https://www.shacknews.com/article/130172/epic-games-store-unlocks-achievements-for-all-games
  They've had achievements for over two years... I swear all the anti epic crowd knows nothing about what their launcher is like at this point and just keep repeating what they read back when it launched... Just like the Steam boycotters back in the early 2000s
  
  Are you serious? Obviously people don't care about achievements on a platform that has almost no community-related functionality.
I am always suprised that people expected anything differently.
Epic was from the start doing things the wrong way, and I will not support any store that has exclusives.
Making a good gaming platform that could rival Steam would take A LOT of time and money and dare I say - no company is willing to lose that for a chance of one day perhaps being only slightly worse competitor that still can't convince people to migrate.
- There are only a few companies that could even hope to take on Valve, at this stage. The likes of EA and others. But by definition, their company culture means they'll never be able to take on Valve.
  Someone else made a comment about what will happen when Gabe steps down and I suddenly realize what a short-term golden age we're likely living in, even with all the bullshit.
  
  EA tried about a decade ago to compete with steam. It didn't go well for them either.
- I can support a store if they keep their own games exclusive. Completely fair game. But fuck the gobble up companies.
- Making a platform that was simply a copy of all of Steam's features would certainly take a lot of time. That's why to break into the space a new platform would need to actually innovate a killer feature that brings early adopters to it even without having all the bells and whistles Steam has. Then the user base can and will grow as you fill in the gaps so the 'sacrifice' of using your platform is lessened.
  All exclusive games do is build resentment in your customers at being forced to use an inferior product.
I've said it before, but until Epic adds some way to provide feedback to others, I won't spend any money on it. Being able to read if a game is buggy, runs on my hardware, etc, is too essential to the experience to not have.
Epic wants to be the pro-developer storefront, but since that seems to involve being anti-consumer, I as the consumer have no interest.
- Which is key, since we, as the consumers, provide all the money!!!
I'm far from being a business savvy person, but honestly, from business perspective what exactly is Epic offering that sets them apart from other competitors? Even if Epic fixed their launcher issues, how would they be different to Steam that is already well established for 20 years? That's why I like GOG as Steam's competitor. GOG focuses on selling DRM-free and retro games. If a game also happens to be available in GOG, I would prefer to buy it from there than Steam. Moreover, GOG keep old games well maintained and updated to run in modern computers; something that Steam is very poor at doing. What does Epic even do differently, apart from doing exclusives which any companies could do?
- It's slightly cheaper for developers to put their games on there. But that sucks as a business model, because game prices aren't any lower so for the end user it doesn't matter. And on features, Epic just loses every matchup against Steam.
  
  Hmm... that's fair but it seems that Epic even forgot to think of end users-- the gamers-- in that regard before trying to compete with Steam. They prioritised devs first over the actually most important stakeholder.
  
  Specifically, if they're also wanting to be on Steam (the largest marketplace by far, so you need to be there) your game can't be cheaper anywhere else. It's a little fucked up that Steam can wield their power like that, but they essentially have a monopoly so they can.
- As the customer, which in a practical sense is the only perspective that matters to me day-to-day, Epic offers me nothing close to what Steam or GOG can give me. Hell, even EA's and Ubisofts launchers were more useful since they at least had exclusives. All Epic has is Fortnite and for someone like myself that doesn't care for that kind of game, there is no reason to even consider their platform for anything.
  And given my recent switch away from Windows and to Linux full time on my gaming PC to put a further wedge between me and the things Microsoft has been doing with Windows that I don't like that is a good thing given Epics history of embracing things that will never work as smoothly on Linux as Steam games do with Proton or GOG's native Linux options do.
- To be honest, I totally forgot about Epic until articles are popping recently that it's not going well even after all these years.
  Also, what's wrong about discussing this? Epic is a good example of a business venture not doing well for failing to do one of the most basic business philosophy: set yourself apart from the competitors.
This CEO may think it's developer-friendly, but I highly doubt if Epic will keep such developer-friendly stance if Epic becomes a giant in this industry.
Epic burnt so much money on Epic store these years. If it succeeds, it's very likely Epic will try to earn it back. From player? Will players willing to pay more in Epic store than the others? If the answer is no.. Sometimes it really makes me wonder if these CEOs are really that stupid..
- Epic burnt so much money on Epic store these years
  It burned money on exclusives. The free games are a much cheaper marketing tool than advertising.
  
  They burn a ton of money on free games too. They're only free to us. Epic pays for them at wholesale rates.
- Yeah, obviously they'd want to earn it back and yeah, obviously from customers. You make that sound malicious. Steam is doing the same thing. With the amount of money Steam makes, they could drop their share in half and still make a killing. Epic wouldn't have to do anything that Steam isn't to recoup costs if they were competitive with Steam.
  That said, Epic does take less revenue from developers, which is nice. This doesn't translate to less for the end user though because Valve uses their market dominance to force the same price across marketplaces or you aren't allowed on Steam. It's fucked up.
  
  Just pointing out, once again, that games sold on the Epic store can be different prices to Steam. "Valve uses their market dominance to force the same price across marketplaces" is a nonsensical, incorrect statement.
I've bought one game on the epic store.
I then immediately had to install the EA app, because you... didn't buy it on the epic store? You bought a license that you have to activate on EA's shit instead.
Kinda thinking there's no point to that, and I should have skipped epic (I had a coupon).
- That's the same on Steam.
  
  Oh so it's just EA sucking, then. Well, it's nice to know nothing ever really changes I suppose.
If Borderlands 3 had released on Steam, I'd have probably bought it when it came out because I still had a lot of goodwill for the series at that time. Instead, I had to wait until the Steam release when the game already had loads of negative press. Exclusive deals are idiotic
- I also waited and because of that when I bought it, on sale, a year later, I didn't even care anymore. The hype was dead and I barely played it.
Epic store not being profitable and despite the backing of Fortnite and Unreal Engine surplas being at the state that it is shows that it is probably much more expensive than expected to make a feature rich launcher. What epic has is more a glorified storefront like humble bundle or Fanatical but worse because it isn't even selling keys for the platform of your choice, and they have to handle server costs of storing all the games too.
- They didn't invest in features.
  They "invested" in paying out the ass for exclusivity and loss leaders thinking that buying users would result in users ignoring how terrible their store was and buying more games there.
  
  In a way it like trying to enter the smartphone market and paying for app exclusives then ignoring the part about polishing the OS experience as much as possible and putting out something that is from the flip phone era.
  
  I own a handful of games on Epic that I actually play. But whenever I see one of those games under $5 on steam sale I buy it. I think I'm down to two games left. Playing Fallout London on GOG gives me the same heebie jeebies
EGS was always shit, I've said it since the beginning, and if they totally shut down and a bunch of dipshits lose their free libraries, all I'll do is laugh. Every downvote I've ever gotten for saying Epic is shit is just another tear for my collection.
You should have been able to see this coming the first (and every) time they bought a dev studio and immediately blocked game sales on Steam, or set games to exclusive for no reason other than locking out people who don't use their shitty store. Companies that can compete on their own merits don't have to do that, and being a fanboy because they gave out free games you probably already bought is fucking stupid.
- I mean, you can get banned from Steam and lose all your games at well...
  You know, the centralization around Steam isn't a thing people should be wishing for...
  
  I've heard of people getting banned from online play on steam, but haven't heard of anyone losing their library. I guess if you only play online, it could be the same effect (so maybe don't be a douchebag when playing online?)
  I don't play multiplayer, except the rare occasion, and it's usually direct connect (which you can't be banned from), so I wouldn't care.
  At any rate, I'm not saying steam is perfect or should be the only store, just that EGS fucking sucks. I agree with Randy Pitchford; We should have many viable competitors. Options are good. Epic is not a good option.
  
  How in the world can you get banned from steam proper?
- Unless you are also building a gog library you have no place to talk.
  
  Maybe when GOG supports Linux properly.
  
  I have a large library of non-DRM games from multiple sources, to say nothing of physical releases and homebrew.
  Even if I didn't, I have every right to say that an anticompetitive shitbag company's hack-job store sucks ass. Same goes for the Nintendo eShop. They don't care about their customers' experience, they only care about making money.
Randy is not known for being very smart.
There was a point I tried to switch to Epic, just to try it out - it is so unbelievably slow & oddly hard to find and organize my own games. They NEED to start putting $$ into the UI otherwise all those free games are for nothing if idetest opening the client itself.
And the fact that they are a multi squillion dollar company suggests they know what the fuck.
Using Junk Store on my Steam Deck (and redeeming free games on the mobile website) to completely avoid the Epic Launcher 😎
- Please tell me more about this Junk Store, I'd been using Heroic for Epic games but it's been a bit dodgy recently
  
  Sure, it's a plugin through Decky. It allows you to log in to Epic and it displays your library in its separate window, allowing you to install them as Non-Steam Games. It's quite easy
They don't have a chance. Steam and gog not only don't suck, they're actually nice to use.

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