Epic Games - Store announced

With regard to a company like Epic being bought with the intention of making it more Chinese, and catering to the Chinese audience, I think that would be a more valid concern, but I'm not sure that's the case. An awful lot of Chinese ownership in the West is about straightforward investments in those markets, without intending to make changes. As I say, many things you would never imagine are already Chinese owned, and you wouldn't even be aware of it.

I understand what you say and I agree in general but I think you are a bit naive when it is in regard of investments of China in the entertainment or media business. To think than the guys working there would do or say anything they think would be taken negatively by their owners is naive. So it has an impact.

For example, Ubisoft has announced than they will adapt Rainbow 16 to the Chinese market so they have removed everything in the game they thought would be offensive for the Chinese censure, essentially watering the game.
Obviously, they also said than that will be the new version everyone in the world will play from now and the existing games installed will be patched.
I do not expect less from that new digital shop, even if I hope to be wrong.
 
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I understand what you say and I agree in general but I think you are a bit naive when it is in regard of investments of China in the entertainment or media business. To think than the guys working there would do or say anything they think would be taken negatively by their owners is naive. So it has an impact.

For example, Ubisoft has announced than they will adapt Rainbow 16 to the Chinese market so they have removed everything in the game they thought would be offensive for the Chinese censure, essentially watering the game.
Obviously, they also said than that will be the new version everyone in the world will play from now and the existing games installed will be patched.
I do not expect less from that new digital shop, even if I hope to be wrong.

I take your point, but I think the effect you describe has more to do with media companies self-censoring to be able to access the Chinese market, and I think that's going on regardless of direct ownership. In Hollywood, there is definitely a trend in Chinese appeasement, but not necessarily because they are Chinese owned (I think only one big studio is.)

So, I think western companies are affected by the lure of the Chinese market, and Chinese investors can be quite happy to produce things for the Western markets, so ownership isn't necessarily the major factor.
 
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I take your point, but I think the effect you describe has more to do with media companies self-censoring to be able to access the Chinese market, and I think that's going on regardless of direct ownership. In Hollywood, there is definitely a trend in Chinese appeasement, but not necessarily because they are Chinese owned (I think only one big studio is.)

So, I think western companies are affected by the lure of the Chinese market, and Chinese investors can be quite happy to produce things for the Western markets, so ownership isn't necessarily the major factor.

You get some good points. And I actually just learned than that store will not be available in China anyway so my point was totally moot.
 
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I believe Epic launcher can be closed when you run the game without the game itself having to close. That makes it better software than Steam, in my opinion.
 
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My Chinese paranoia is that China has demonstrated a lack of laws (or western laws) when it comes to taking, abusing and distributing personal information for both political and financial gains. The only one worse (I'm talking about govt not individual) are North Korean and Russians.

The China paranoia really makes no sense. It's quite understandable to believe that China is a communist state supported by "leftists"… if you've been living in a vault since about 1963.
 
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As good as some competition for Steam sounds, I dread the time when I have 12 clients installed and have to open 6 of them to find the game I wanted to play…

ha!
there is yet a worse problem with six game clients!! even two give me headaches.
why?

because like I have done with books and cds, and DVDs, I see a game, I like it, I buy it on gog, say, then I find that I own it already, on steam! I have friends who have three copies of the same book. same with cds.

yes the shortcut on the desk is a giveaway, but what happens if you have 40 or more shortcuts?!

took me five minutes, the other day, to find the Gog ultima underworld shortcut from the gog game that I installed!

but seriously, another game client is a good idea.

when there are maybe six of these, or more, like even now there are the main two, then there is the humble bundle store, then the ??? source of Russian games, then Origin store. got to add "the underdogs", and other abandonware sites too.

an Idea: I have a black book, a book of ruled paper with a side index of "A through X" tabs, made just for passwords.

but one of these books and make tabs for each game site then every time that you buy a game, add it.
maybe better yet, make a folder in C drive and thus the games, when added to each subfolder, where the subfolder is the name of a game seller, these games will be in alphabetic order automatically.

otherwise you WILL end up with duplicate purchases.

freestone
 
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My Chinese paranoia is that China has demonstrated a lack of laws (or western laws) when it comes to taking, abusing and distributing personal information for both political and financial gains. The only one worse (I'm talking about govt not individual) are North Korean and Russians.

Yeah, I can understand that. My point is that of all the stuff we live with that is Chinese owned, I don't think it makes sense to single out Epic.

Also, this whole thing is BS, really. I just checked, and Tencent only owns a 40% share of Epic, from an investment in 2012. It's a US company, based in the US, and subject to all US protections and laws.
 
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Yea that is probably mostly true. I guess the secondary issue will be the likeliness that the service is buggy until it matures. ubi was pathetic when they first went live; gog galaxy still sucks (but is optional); ea origin i've never had an issue with and steam has been fairly reliable.
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Anyway i might try the free subnautical game when it becomes availalbe and then evaulate with it - depends what info they require to sign up. Sites get hacked everyday and using another provider is another site that can be hacked.

Yeah, I can understand that. My point is that of all the stuff we live with that is Chinese owned, I don't think it makes sense to single out Epic.

Also, this whole thing is BS, really. I just checked, and Tencent only owns a 40% share of Epic, from an investment in 2012. It's a US company, based in the US, and subject to all US protections and laws.
 
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I've always had a hard time seeing myself leave Steam. I would definitely consider the Epic store though. While I like having all my games in one spot, I also find that as time goes on I stop going back to games I'm done with (not finished… just done playing lol). If I started buying games on Epic I may eventually stop using Steam altogether as my library "ages". I reload my OS every 6 months and right now I have just 3 of my nearly 500 steam games installed. One big advantage of Steam is the ability to get Steam keys at a big discount by shopping around. If Epic Games keys become as prevalent on GMG, Fanatical, etc. I could be persuaded to move on from Steam. One thing I definitely wont do is buy full price on Epic if I can get cheaper Steam keys.
 
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No forums, no screenshots, no workshop... I can't tell if Steam is earning all of that 30% cut but I can certainly say they are earning a good hunk of it.

This looks like a low-rent version of Steam. That's pretty much what GOG is right now and it's popularity is <ahem> limited. If they are going to get a foothold, they are going to have to be cheaper than Steam.
 
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My Chinese paranoia is that China has demonstrated a lack of laws (or western laws) when it comes to taking, abusing and distributing personal information for both political and financial gains. The only one worse (I'm talking about govt not individual) are North Korean and Russians.

So the Chinese havent not got the memo yet. The western laws had one outcome: ensuring that customers their consent to be data farmed. Up to the point that in the US, the police use all the social media to substantiate any kind of arrest they perform on people.

In the case of Steam, considering their situation, getting the consent is somewhat automatic as there is very few other options that would not demand the consent to be data farmed.
Steam can collect any data and sell them to their other customers like devs.

Too bad the Chinese did not get the memo about the consent stuff. Or maybe they have and while they act the same, their similar behaviour is still considered different and threatening.
 
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China, Russia and North Korea are well known to sponsor state political assassination and financial crimes. While the US has a lot of issues (including war time crimes); we don't see Trump killing his competitors (though he does yell lock her up a lot).

Too bad the Chinese did not get the memo about the consent stuff. Or maybe they have and while they act the same, their similar behaviour is still considered different and threatening.
 
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GOG is the store for freedom. Client not required. Just a pity it takes such a long time for the bigger games to be released there if ever. However I'm mostly an indie guy these days anyway.
 
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When I wanted to create particle effects on the Epic Games - Store it turned out that I can't just release my product, but it needs to be evaluated and VOTED IN by others. At that point I was "Okay, I'm outta here." This ""Epic"" Store appears to be the same puffed up cesspool.
 
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btw, anyone interested in Conan Exiles devkit? It's free on Epic Store.
 
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