Should Epic Games Store Exclusives Be Boycotted?

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I feel like they didn't do the best job about arguing against the epic store since one of the most worrying things about it is how its getting exclusives, for as much as Steam is a monopoly, it really isn't one. Valve is incredibly hands off with Steam, it doesn't require games to be exclusive to its service and it lets pretty much anyone in, for good or ill. Steam just happens to be the biggest gaming platform on PC, it got there mainly by just providing better service then other ones did, not by using underhanded tactics. The epic store is trying to usurp Steam by using rather underhanded tactics and that makes me worry about them potentially taking market share, since to me it shows that if they did get on top, they would do everything they could to stay there and demand continued exclusivity from titles to starve out the competition.
 

ObsidianJones

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I legitimately will never understand the "Steam doesn't curate what games are on the platform".

That always created a resounding "...So?" in my heart. If Steam doesn't control what games that are on the platform, you know who in my household controls what games I look through? Myself. And as far as I know, Steam doesn't require you to buy any percentage of these games per month to keep your account.

This is the argument for censorship of Media which I thought everyone was against. Faceless company needs to sanitize and sterilize what comes before me so I don't have to be offended.

There are literally thousands of games on steam that I'll never know a thing about because I don't go searching for them. If there's a game I heard about that I am interested in, I go and search for it on Steam. If it's there. I download it. Other than that, I don't have a clue what's on Steam because it doesn't interest me. I don't search for content that I Might Like. I search for content I've already done research on and it interests me. And the user reviews also help me sway my opinion more.

I was absolutely excited for Epic. It didn't reach the level of polish I'd want to buy in. In fact, other than random free games, I consider the Epic Game Store as an inferior service to Epic. And instead of getting better or whatever, the CEO went on a quasi tweet war, basically ignoring complaints and liking developers who helped sell the hype of the platform. Which is odd, because he's continually on record stating his motivation of challenging Steam is to force them to do better... while not doing better themselves. I'm a hundred percent with the sentiments that Steam needs to give developers more money. But Epic needs to offer customers a better deal, not just complain about how bad Steam is.

Everyone else do what you want. That's the human way, after all.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I legitimately will never understand the "Steam doesn't curate what games are on the platform".

That always created a resounding "...So?" in my heart. If Steam doesn't control what games that are on the platform, you know who in my household controls what games I look through? Myself. And as far as I know, Steam doesn't require you to buy any percentage of these games per month to keep your account.

This is the argument for censorship of Media which I thought everyone was against. Faceless company needs to sanitize and sterilize what comes before me so I don't have to be offended.

There are literally thousands of games on steam that I'll never know a thing about because I don't go searching for them. If there's a game I heard about that I am interested in, I go and search for it on Steam. If it's there. I download it. Other than that, I don't have a clue what's on Steam because it doesn't interest me. I don't search for content that I Might Like. I search for content I've already done research on and it interests me. And the user reviews also help me sway my opinion more.
The argument is that since there are so many bad games that it means there might be games you love that you miss because the bad games make the good ones impossible to find. I find it a rather silly argument, especially after all the discovery tools that Valve has added to Steam, but that is what they are arguing.
 

SupahEwok

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The argument is that since there are so many bad games that it means there might be games you love that you miss because the bad games make the good ones impossible to find. I find it a rather silly argument, especially after all the discovery tools that Valve has added to Steam, but that is what they are arguing.
Those people have too much time on their hands to play games if they run out of finding ones that they'll love that easily.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Those people have too much time on their hands to play games if they run out of finding ones that they'll love that easily.
I never said it was a good argument, just that I understand it.
 

gsilver

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What about Tencent, game censorship, and the way Devotion got buried by the Chinese government?

I know that Tencent didn't publish Devotion, but it is a prominent force in the publishing space, owns a large share of Epic, and is under Chinese control.
 
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Gordon_4

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I legitimately will never understand the "Steam doesn't curate what games are on the platform".

That always created a resounding "...So?" in my heart. If Steam doesn't control what games that are on the platform, you know who in my household controls what games I look through? Myself. And as far as I know, Steam doesn't require you to buy any percentage of these games per month to keep your account.

This is the argument for censorship of Media which I thought everyone was against. Faceless company needs to sanitize and sterilize what comes before me so I don't have to be offended.

There are literally thousands of games on steam that I'll never know a thing about because I don't go searching for them. If there's a game I heard about that I am interested in, I go and search for it on Steam. If it's there. I download it. Other than that, I don't have a clue what's on Steam because it doesn't interest me. I don't search for content that I Might Like. I search for content I've already done research on and it interests me. And the user reviews also help me sway my opinion more.

I was absolutely excited for Epic. It didn't reach the level of polish I'd want to buy in. In fact, other than random free games, I consider the Epic Game Store as an inferior service to Epic. And instead of getting better or whatever, the CEO went on a quasi tweet war, basically ignoring complaints and liking developers who helped sell the hype of the platform. Which is odd, because he's continually on record stating his motivation of challenging Steam is to force them to do better... while not doing better themselves. I'm a hundred percent with the sentiments that Steam needs to give developers more money. But Epic needs to offer customers a better deal, not just complain about how bad Steam is.

Everyone else do what you want. That's the human way, after all.
The irritation at Steam’s lack of curation tends to circle around the amount of low effort, broken and at times outright stolen material that gets vomited on there without so much as a blink.

Sending shit like that packing isn’t censorship, it’s quality control.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Sending shit like that packing isn’t censorship, it’s quality control.
Actually its kinda both. Epic has said they won't allow adult games on their store so that is censorship.
 

fOx

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Im getting real sick of this quality control argument. I have never, ever seen a broken, bad game on my page, unless it was from a AAA studio. Im sure those cheap, bad games exist, but I don't know how they're cluumttering up peoples steam pages. Unless people like jim sterling go actively looking for them, and then they start getting reccomended.

Is the argument that they get kicked off the new releases page? Im sorry, but its not valves job to market your game.
 

fOx

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The irritation at Steam’s lack of curation tends to circle around the amount of low effort, broken and at times outright stolen material that gets vomited on there without so much as a blink.

Sending shit like that packing isn’t censorship, it’s quality control.
I mean, you say that, but the reason for the new system is that a christian group was using steams old system to ban LGBT games. If a game has stolen assets, then they'll still get removed. That's illegal. As for cluttering up your store page, you have a stupidly large number of tools to curate your own page. I barely even use mine, and I don't get recommended bad games at all. I'm curious what you're doing, that you're being inundated with broken game with stolen material.
 

Gordon_4

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I mean, you say that, but the reason for the new system is that a christian group was using steams old system to ban LGBT games. If a game has stolen assets, then they'll still get removed. That's illegal. As for cluttering up your store page, you have a stupidly large number of tools to curate your own page. I barely even use mine, and I don't get recommended bad games at all. I'm curious what you're doing, that you're being inundated with broken game with stolen material.
I’m not getting inundated because hey I know how to use tags and buttons, but I’d rather they weren’t there at all.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I’m not getting inundated because hey I know how to use tags and buttons, but I’d rather they weren’t there at all.
Wait, then are you saying you would prefer a service that limited the number of games on it? Like that it had a max of 500 or so?
 

Gordon_4

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Wait, then are you saying you would prefer a service that limited the number of games on it? Like that it had a max of 500 or so?
Don’t be obtuse; it’s not a good look on you. I would rather Valve spent some of that dragon’s horde of plunder they’re sitting on to hire say, two hundred people to test the games on a purely technical level and make sure they’re not just stolen assets at time of submission. Theme, content, all that Jazz is down to the discretion of the developer and player and should in no way bar them from listing. Unless they’re fragrantly breaking the law through libel or slander or something. It wouldn’t be retrospective so all the junk there now is grandfathered in unless it gets delisted and resubmitted.
 

fOx

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I’m not getting inundated because hey I know how to use tags and buttons, but I’d rather they weren’t there at all.
If you're not being inundated, and presumably aren't seeing any of these games, then why do you care?
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Don’t be obtuse; it’s not a good look on you. I would rather Valve spent some of that dragon’s horde of plunder they’re sitting on to hire say, two hundred people to test the games on a purely technical level and make sure they’re not just stolen assets at time of submission. Theme, content, all that Jazz is down to the discretion of the developer and player and should in no way bar them from listing. Unless they’re fragrantly breaking the law through libel or slander or something. It wouldn’t be retrospective so all the junk there now is grandfathered in unless it gets delisted and resubmitted.
I mean no matter how well curated the service is eventually you will need tags and good searches because eventually there will just be too many games to easily browse. I know that there is a lot of crap on steam that is just shoveled out, but to me it seems like they are really doing everything they can to give users the tools needed to be able to browse through it and find the gems in that pile of crap. I mean really if there is one thing I wish steam would take a more active roll on its dealing with bad users.
 

Tsun Tzu

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That new asymmetrical Predator game, Hunting Grounds, was really interesting to me as a passive 'fan' of the mythos and I was quite excited to give it a shot or see how it shook out ratings wis- annnd it's an Epic exclusive. I no longer care. Same story with lots of newer titles I've been looking forward to over the last couple years. Metro Exodus included.

On the subject of Hunting Grounds, they've also managed to shoot themselves in the foot by vastly limiting the player base due to Steam's exclusion, leading to massive wait times for queues and further sales losses due to poor word of mouth/said exclusivity. But hey, they got their Epic check.

Simply put, I absolutely fuckin' abhor the business practices that company employs (exclusivity is a cancer that...I was going to say belongs on consoles, but I seriously don't think it's at all cool there either) as well as the general attitude of their higher ups. So, yeah. I'm in no way inclined toward supporting them.
 

Gordon_4

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That new asymmetrical Predator game, Hunting Grounds, was really interesting to me as a passive 'fan' of the mythos and I was quite excited to give it a shot or see how it shook out ratings wis- annnd it's an Epic exclusive. I no longer care. Same story with lots of newer titles I've been looking forward to over the last couple years. Metro Exodus included.

On the subject of Hunting Grounds, they've also managed to shoot themselves in the foot by vastly limiting the player base due to Steam's exclusion, leading to massive wait times for queues and further sales losses due to poor word of mouth/said exclusivity. But hey, they got their Epic check.

Simply put, I absolutely fuckin' abhor the business practices that company employs (exclusivity is a cancer that...I was going to say belongs on consoles, but I seriously don't think it's at all cool there either) as well as the general attitude of their higher ups. So, yeah. I'm in no way inclined toward supporting them.
You know whats disappointing about that game is that you functionally had that in the old AVP2 games. My friends and I did it all the time. We had to cheese it a little and use the FFA Deathmatch mode so we could have a blatantly unbalanced team but that functionally made it a hard mode since we had friendly fire on.