• Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well not to discourage them but I like Epic games because every Thursday they give me a free game sometimes two. Hell all the 100 games I own on their platform I gotten for free. So maybe that's why it's not profitable?

    Beyond that I see no monopoly every game on their I can find on Steam and so far have had no issues with it.

    • Zorque@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      They literally pay for exclusivity. It's weird that people seem to selectively ignore that every time someone brings up their desire to get free games from them.

        • Maestro@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Epic still has to pay the developers even if they give away the game for free. I'm happy to help bleed Epic dry by taking their free games. But I will never ever spend a single cent on their platform.

          • Rose@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You're lying to yourself. They pay a fixed amount for the giveaway and it doesn't matter if the games are claimed. If anything, you owning a game on Epic means you're more likely to mention it to your friends and possibly get them to use the platform and spend on it.

            • SRo@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              This. Active usernumbers are more worth to them than the small fee they pay the Devs. Everyone who "just redeems the free games" is helping them actively.

            • Maestro@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              They pay a fixed amount based on expected/average number of units given away. If that number is higher, devs can get more money.

              • Rose@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Can you provide any evidence for this? The documents from the Apple trial showed fixed and round figures for every single giveaway.

                • Maestro@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Yes, but those buyout prices aren't negotiated in a vacuum. When the number of entitlements goes up, studios will demand higher buyout prices. There's a reason free game quality has been lackluster lately. Studios demand a higher buyouts and Epic doesn't want to spend too much money, so they go with smaller titles.

                  • Rose@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    I'm pretty sure the prices are based on the projected sales using industry knowledge and tools like SteamSpy, created by Epic's head of the publishing strategy at the time. It's not common that a publisher participating in a giveaway would get to use their own figures from a prior giveaway to change the price offered by Epic, while the others' figures are available only for the games in those leaks. In other words, claiming many copies in the present is extremely unlikely to have any effect on the future buyout prices.

          • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Same If I buy a game it will be either directly from the maker or Steam. Epic strictly for the free games.

      • highsight@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I mean, I get why people hate this, but some games would literally not exist if not for that exclusivity funding. For example, the newly released Alan Wake 2 is completely funded by Epic. I'd say at that point, the exclusivity is fair game.

        • cottonmon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Epic funding games development was only a recent thing. For the most part, they were buying exclusivity for games that were already set to be released or were already in active development. The other reason why this was hated was because they bought exclusivity for games that were crowd-funded back when the store was newly opened.

        • micka190@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          After Control's success, I'd imagine AW2 still would've been made even without Epic's exclusivity/publishing deal. If anything, Control's timed EGS exclusivity hurt their numbers until they eventually hit Steam.

          • Rose@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            So your theory is that Control wasn't a major success on Epic, so Remedy decided to do the same thing with their next game? Sounds legit.

        • CMDR_Horn@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Epic funding games just makes them a publisher, nothing groundbreaking.

    • MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I have not bought a single game from their store. I have over 300.

      I also haven't played any of the games I got for free. Maybe one day I will, but today is not that day.

      • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I started playing a few and they play well and so far are fun. Have had no issues with the platform.

    • Davel23@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      every game on their [sic] I can find on Steam

      Oh yeah? Find these:

      3 out of 10

      A Knight's Quest

      Alan Wake Remastered

      Alan Wake 2

      Assassin's Creed Mirage

      Battle Breakers

      Binary Smoke

      Castle Storm 2

      Core

      Corruption 2029

      Crime Boss: Rockay City

      Dangerous Driving

      Dauntless

      Dead Island 2

      Diabotical

      Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed

      Goat Simulator 3

      Grit

      Infinitesimals

      John Carpenter's Toxic Commando

      Kid A Mnesia Exhibition

      Kingdom Hearts series

      The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

      Ooblets

      PC Building Simulator 2

      ReadySet Heroes

      Rocket League

      RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures

      Salt and Sacrifice

      Saturnalia

      The Settlers: New Allies

      Shoulders of Giants

      Sins of a Solar Empire II

      Space Punks

      Star Trek: Resurgence

      Tchia

      The Crew Motorfest

      The Expanse: A Telltale Series

      Tortuga - A Pirate’s Tale

      Touch Type Tale

      Witchfire

      The Wolf Among Us 2

      • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don't know about any of the others, but at least Rocket League and Fall Guys are great examples here.

        Both games already existed and were extremely successful on Steam.

        Both games got bought by Epic and we were told they were going to get continued support.

        Both games were then REMOVED from Steam.

        Both games then started suddenly having objectively worse monetization. Both communities grew a pretty negative opinion of the changes.

        Both games are objectively less popular now, though at least some of this is just age/fads.

        But both games are just objectively in a worse spot than they were before. All Epic did was make them objectively worse.

      • mayTay@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This list is just another argument against epic… artificial exclusives. For a FUCKING LAUNCHER. Even fucking Playstation, EA and Ubisoft opened up.

        Fuck Epic.

        • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Fucking Playstation is not better than Epic with handling exclusives lmfao come on now

          • mayTay@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They are literally releasing their games on another platform that actually requires them to put money into the project again to develop a port. So yeah, even PS atm is better than Epic.

            • WldFyre@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              So Playstation releasing some of their games literally years later as often sub-par ports is better than being able to play a game day 1 native on PC? I'd love to hear to the logic for that lol

              • mayTay@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                It's better than keeping them artificially locked behind a launcher for no reason whatsoever, yes.

                  • mayTay@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    So just let me get that straight.

                    You also don't like exclusives and want ppl to be able to play the way they want.

                    …and somehow Playstation - actively releasing their games on PC, investing time, money & effort - are worse than Epic who just want to lure ppl to their store/launcher and actively taking away the choice of playing method?

                    Alrighty then…

      • panchzila@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They bought fall guys and removed the possibility of buying it on steam. And timed exclusives like borderlands 3.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Okay, fair, there are some exclusives. But reading through these, wow, nothing of value is lost.

        Most importantly because for the newest ones like AW2, they're just on a 1 year Early Access release in a lot of ways. Every time someone I know bought a game there, I was grateful they did the paid (as in, they pay, not get paid) bug testing work for the poor devs. And then once it releases on other stores, you can buy a somewhat patched-up version, and usually for 25%-50% off.