Phoenix Point - Epic Games Store Announcement

Silver said:
The likely one to suffer will probably be GOG not Steam. They survive on thin margins and the Epic competition, such as it is, will make it tougher for them. Luckily they have Cyberpunk 2077 coming up sometime in the future. For me this is annoying because I like the DRM free games and extra compatibility they offer.

Its like replacing a jungle with a planted forest. There is no undergrowth and the overall ecosystem derives little benefit from it.
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Unless someone else starts offering DRM-free games, I don't see GOG going anywhere. There will always be a market for games that don't require a client.

I think Steam has been hurting GOG for a long time though. Remember when GOG was the only place to acquire digital versions of classic games? That was originally their specialty. It was the go-to site when you wanted to relive those old favorites on your modern system.

Then Valve decided to jump on that bandwagon, and now almost all of those classics are available on Steam as well. Now the only thing GOG has going for it is being DRM-free. Hopefully that's enough.
 
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JDR13 said:
Unless someone else starts offering DRM-free games, I don't see GOG going anywhere. There will always be a market for games that don't require a client.

I think Steam has been hurting GOG for a long time though. Remember when GOG was the only place to acquire digital versions of classic games? That was originally their specialty. It was the go-to site when you wanted to relive those old favorites on your modern system.

Then Valve decided to jump on that bandwagon, and now almost all of those classics are available on Steam as well. Now the only thing GOG has going for it is being DRM-free. Hopefully that's enough.
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Yep. GOG needs another selling point. If it could get rights to sell old arcade/console games that would be a huge plus in my book. As complicated as that sounds, and it probably is, it would be hugely popular as most of those games are pirated. The modern consoles only have selective backward compatibility and alot of games that are/or could be in demand aren't sold.

Problem is that the Sony and others will likely look at that as lost profit. Why do that when you could profit with some selective retro releases every generation? They are just not realising the number of games that could be sold for a long period of time on GOG which gets them no profit now.
 
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After Good Old Games started I was their big fan. And actually I still am, It just doesnt work for me for other then old games or smaller indie games.

I was few times extremely disappointed by their patching system. I noticed that patches on GOG are larger then in Steam. Or even GOG client downloads whole game again, which is insane. Not to mention that updates on GOG are sometimes available days after Steam version is already updated.

Might be this is actually caused by developers/publishers and not GOG, but not big difference for the end user... pity.
 
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Eurogamer:

And while Phoenix Point's community is shouting loudly on the likes of reddit, Gollop said he hasn't seen significant numbers of backers request refunds.

"We sent an email to all our 47,000 backers on Tuesday informing them about the Epic deal," he said. "The following day we had 1300 requests for refunds. The day after it increased to 1600. We don't anticipate that more than five to six per cent of our backers will actually request refunds in the long run."
 
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Andrew23 said:
After Good Old Games started I was their big fan. And actually I still am, It just doesnt work for me for other then old games or smaller indie games.

I was few times extremely disappointed by their patching system. I noticed that patches on GOG are larger then in Steam. Or even GOG client downloads whole game again, which is insane. Not to mention that updates on GOG are sometimes available days after Steam version is already updated.

Might be this is actually caused by developers/publishers and not GOG, but not big difference for the end user… pity.
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Last time I bought a new game on GoG was Hard West. And then patches would be days after Steam. After that I gave up on GoG.
 
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The backers and the refund rate would never tell the full story. They are dedicated people who gave money to a guy who did one genius game in 1994. They have already "paid" for the game to be made and they would unlikely stop at installing a client for that money and for that mid 90 nostalgia.

Only the sales will tell how this game and Epic really fare.
 
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I don't know what tools they provide for patching but it seems some developers figure out how to make it work right and others force you to download the full game. That is to say part of the issue is probably with the developers. It hard to say much more without knowing the limits of the tool but one thign I've heard ist hat fewer copies sell on gog so developers don't want to waste anytime making patches and other stuff work smoothly.

Andrew23 said:
After Good Old Games started I was their big fan. And actually I still am, It just doesnt work for me for other then old games or smaller indie games.

I was few times extremely disappointed by their patching system. I noticed that patches on GOG are larger then in Steam. Or even GOG client downloads whole game again, which is insane. Not to mention that updates on GOG are sometimes available days after Steam version is already updated.

Might be this is actually caused by developers/publishers and not GOG, but not big difference for the end user… pity.
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It might have been mentioned previously but I think that there is an additional subtle but important point that is driving developers towards Epic store: its another (yet to be cracked) DRM platform with no third-party re-sellers, to ensure premium selling cost over longer periods of time in comparison to Steam.
 
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Key resellers maybe but I see plenty of cracked Epic games on the internet. Just look at Ashen and Metro Exodus for examples one million torrent downloads or more already.

Also someone has cracked/ripped the storefront. So it's no better then Steam. As the DRM on Steam never worked as advertised. The third party DRM works for small time.
 
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SpoonFULL said:
O_O I stand corrected!
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Yeah a few experts on certain sites claim Epic has no DRM.

Those cracked games use Denuvo which doesn't work well anymore. Only due to debugger programs are able to crack the game faster then a few years back.

So Denuvo did not stop Piracy as sites claimed it would. Just stalls cracks.
 
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henriquejr said:
. Why you took this out of context, go figure! I never said/implied mod distribution systems should be monetized by anyone.
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It was not taken out of context. It was put into context.

The list is great when put in context. The complaint about the lack of cloud saving system isnt great until placed in context: when it is done by a site players swore themselves as SP defenders.

No cloud save, no money spent on this key feature for SP design.

Same stuff for mods.

No mod support, no risk of mod monetization from the selling platform.

Once again, on this site, players are adamant supporters for SP design, this is why they feel the lack of cloud saves.

They fiercely oppose mod monetization, this is why the lack of mod support is seen as a missing feature.
 
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This thread is turning into a golden thread.

In the long run this allows big corps to drive small corps out of business and drive up prices (i'm not saying this will happen with steam but it is clear what sort of tactic epic is using).
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The kind of mentality that gave the crowdfunded scene with Steam cast as the small corp.

you said:
Cut out the insults. Epic is effective bribing developers to enhance their store.
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Bribing is a big word. Both parties acknowledged the risk of starting a new distribution platform. As such, there is an agreement about risk cost and it is covered.

Trusting this site, it is $1 000 000 sales value. Which is 40 000 copies $ 25 a piece, which is 25 000 copies $40 a piece.

Neither parties plan to trigger the clause, devs expect much more sales as the platform does.

Now regarding the little guy thing, this platform does a positive thing because that low volume of sales is isually the little guy thing.

More, according to this site, Steam runs a scheme of decreasing their cut depending on sales volume
It was perceived as a move for the big guys.

Now what is better for the small guy: a platform that takes 12pc flat or a platform that takes 30pc decreasing according to the volumes of sales.

This dev team are heroes for the small guy, they jeopardize their life, their reputation, their credentials to help the little guy.
 
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JDR13 said:
Um…that was from your first post.

If you want to act like a butthurt child now because I called you out on an ignorant statement, cool. But if you're going to voice an opinion that drastic you should expect a reaction.
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You use the word butthurt on a regular basis and I’m the child ? Funny. Only person i know over 12 using that on a regular basis.

It’s not ignorant or drastic, you just have a hard time controlling your emotions when some says negative things about studios you like. Same thing happens with the Witcher.

My comment is so ignorant and drastic that your the only one that felt the need to respond. Of course you felt the need to respond to most negative comments in this thread. So i wonder was it my comment or is it you?
 
I believe great old games hurt themselves when they did some mass employment hires a few years back. I think they bloated themselves for the amount of clients they were serving, and eventually those things will come back to haunt you. Assuming they make the proper corrections, I suspect they'll be around for the long haul as no other company truly offers what they do.
 
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Carnifex said:
I believe great old games hurt themselves when they did some mass employment hires a few years back. I think they bloated themselves for the amount of clients they were serving, and eventually those things will come back to haunt you. Assuming they make the proper corrections, I suspect they'll be around for the long haul as no other company truly offers what they do.
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Agree but they need to change or fix the update process though. Also based on forum comments on GOG they have some changes rolling out soon so we'll see I guess.
 
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Carnifex said:
I believe great old games hurt themselves when they did some mass employment hires a few years back. I think they bloated themselves for the amount of clients they were serving, and eventually those things will come back to haunt you. Assuming they make the proper corrections, I suspect they'll be around for the long haul as no other company truly offers what they do.
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I think they under-invested in their client, and if I've taken something on board from these debates, it's that people are much more interested in the extended features of the client than I am, personally.

I also the think the patching issue is something that comes up again and again. I suspect, though, that a lot of that comes down to the devs. Most likely they work on getting the Steam updates processed and tested, before worrying about GOG, which is just an unfortunate consequence of their smaller market. I do wonder if they could work on making the process smoother and more efficient, though.
 
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One thing in their favor is the Galaxy client made patching easier then the old manual way. Still your right about publishers & developers treating GOG as second class.

I've seen developers take pre-orders for the GOG version then only release on Steam. Take a look at a game called Ancestors Legacy for one example with bad excuses.
 
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You seem to miss the major issue here. There is no problem with the developer choosing to sell their game on epic at a lower price than other platforms or only on epic because they think they will make more money. The problem is epic BUYING the enforced exclusiveness.
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I.e, it isn't the developer deciding that they will get a bigger cut and do better by selling on Epic - it is epic offering them a chunk of money and saying well if your game doesn't sell we will ensure you get a few coins but in exchange your not allowed to sell it anywhere else for a year. Naturally we don't have data but my guess is epic is the winner here not the developer (at least hte developer who might have otherwise had a smash hit - i suppose those games that wouldn't sell well anywhere are doing well with this deal).

ChienAboyeur said:
This thread is turning into a golden thread.


The kind of mentality that gave the crowdfunded scene with Steam cast as the small corp.



Bribing is a big word. Both parties acknowledged the risk of starting a new distribution platform. As such, there is an agreement about risk cost and it is covered.

Trusting this site, it is $1 000 000 sales value. Which is 40 000 copies $ 25 a piece, which is 25 000 copies $40 a piece.

Neither parties plan to trigger the clause, devs expect much more sales as the platform does.

Now regarding the little guy thing, this platform does a positive thing because that low volume of sales is isually the little guy thing.

More, according to this site, Steam runs a scheme of decreasing their cut depending on sales volume
It was perceived as a move for the big guys.

Now what is better for the small guy: a platform that takes 12pc flat or a platform that takes 30pc decreasing according to the volumes of sales.

This dev team are heroes for the small guy, they jeopardize their life, their reputation, their credentials to help the little guy.
Click to expand...
 
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you said:
You seem to miss the major issue here. There is no problem with the developer choosing to sell their game on epic at a lower price than other platforms or only on epic because they think they will make more money. The problem is epic BUYING the enforced exclusiveness.
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But why is that a major issue? "Buying enforced exclusiveness" is essentially what happens between creator and distributor in most every creative industry. Is it so different from labels competing for bands, or publishers for novelists? They have to try and offer the sweetest deal, often including an advance and a guaranteed return. To my mind, that's how I want the middle-men in every industry - competing fiercely, in a healthy market.
 
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