So Borderlands 3 is finally happening. Thoughts, impressions

[Kyrian007]

Exclusive to Epic... this presents a problem. I'd buy it on day 1 just to throw my pocketbook "fuck you" to everyone complaining about the exclusivity. But I already boycott day one purchases from AAA publishers on principle protesting predatory lootboxes, microtransactions... things that are actually anti-consumer practices rather than just a company choosing to sell on the platform that gives them the best deal.

Has there been any word on financial skullduggery in BL3? Or is your stance publisher/industry wide in general, not about any specific title(s) malpractices?

I wouldn't doubt its there, but I haven't heard anything specific. The day one boycott from me is AAA publisher specific. 2K as a subsidiary of Take-Two interactive qualifies in the case of Borderlands.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Really looking forward to it actually. I didn't pay any attention to Borderlands when it came out, but picked up 2 and loved it. The gameplay itself was nothing much to write home about, just a first person shooter version of Diablo, but the humour and gameworld grabbed me enough that I picked up (and loved) the Pre-Sequel as well. I also played Tales from the Borderlands, the Telltale game, which nicely retained the humour and gameworld sufficiently to feel like a proper Borderlands game despite obviously the massive change in genre.

And being a lifelong D&D player, Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep remains my favourite DLC expansion of all time.

 

[Saelune]

Exclusive to Epic... this presents a problem. I'd buy it on day 1 just to throw my pocketbook "fuck you" to everyone complaining about the exclusivity. But I already boycott day one purchases from AAA publishers on principle protesting predatory lootboxes, microtransactions... things that are actually anti-consumer practices rather than just a company choosing to sell on the platform that gives them the best deal.

So I guess a day 2 purchase will have to be enough of a "fuck you." After all, I was going to wait for reviews and a price drop until I heard all the hubbub over the exclusivity. Now I can make that day 2 full-priced purchase secure in the knowledge that somewhere a butthurt Valve fanboy weeps. Haw Haw.

Epic Game Store is terrible. Don't let your hate for Steam make you make bad decisions. If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

 

[CritialGaming]

[Epic Game Store is terrible. Don't let your hate for Steam make you make bad decisions. If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

Is it that terrible though? I mean I get that the store front has a lot of missing features that Steam has, but Steam also has thousands of spunk bubbles that think they are games on its store shelves. It has a new release list that looks like dog vomit more than it ever has games with any real effort behind them.

Meanwhile the Epic store looks clean, and there isn't a bad game on there (yet). Your library is fucking clean looking, with preview cover art of all the games you own, grayed out if you don't have them installed, full color and vibrant for those you do. I personally really like the look on the Epic store, and once the improvements are in place it might end up being my go to place for games. Especially if they keep giving out free shit.

People are just over-reacting now. The spyware rumor is just rumor, and it seems like a fabricated reason to hate. Not that Steam doesn't sell and leak player information ever, because it does and has happened before.

Frankly as much as I would love to have every game in one spot, it's not a reasonable demand. And not every store that sells games will have any game you are looking for. I've been to countless Gamestops only to find them out of a game I wanted, forcing me to go to a Best Buy or Fry's.

As for the exclusivity? That's the biggest nonsense argument I've ever heard. It doesn't cost you anything. It isn't like you have to run out and buy a new Epic store only PC, or another console, it's just another install that is trivial at the end of the day because once the game is installed on your computer you just click the desktop shortcut and it launches. Done deal.

 

[Majestic_Manatee]

As soon as Randy Pitchford began praising the epic store on social media, it should've been obvious what was going to happen with Borderlands 3.

 

[Saelune]

[Epic Game Store is terrible. Don't let your hate for Steam make you make bad decisions. If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

Is it that terrible though? I mean I get that the store front has a lot of missing features that Steam has, but Steam also has thousands of spunk bubbles that think they are games on its store shelves. It has a new release list that looks like dog vomit more than it ever has games with any real effort behind them.

Meanwhile the Epic store looks clean, and there isn't a bad game on there (yet). Your library is fucking clean looking, with preview cover art of all the games you own, grayed out if you don't have them installed, full color and vibrant for those you do. I personally really like the look on the Epic store, and once the improvements are in place it might end up being my go to place for games. Especially if they keep giving out free shit.

People are just over-reacting now. The spyware rumor is just rumor, and it seems like a fabricated reason to hate. Not that Steam doesn't sell and leak player information ever, because it does and has happened before.

Frankly as much as I would love to have every game in one spot, it's not a reasonable demand. And not every store that sells games will have any game you are looking for. I've been to countless Gamestops only to find them out of a game I wanted, forcing me to go to a Best Buy or Fry's.

As for the exclusivity? That's the biggest nonsense argument I've ever heard. It doesn't cost you anything. It isn't like you have to run out and buy a new Epic store only PC, or another console, it's just another install that is trivial at the end of the day because once the game is installed on your computer you just click the desktop shortcut and it launches. Done deal.

Epic Game Store is owned by an unethical Chinese corporation, Tencent, lacks any security whatsoever and is prone to stealing private info, parasites off Steam's own private and personal data, and is prone to hacks and email leaks.

Steam may be overrun with low to no quality porn games, but atleast it has security. Plus Epic is really making me realize that Steam is a better service than I thought. It still has tons of room for improvement, but if Epic is the alternative, no thanks.

Unfortunately, people are prone to petty spite, and I think Epic will become a undefeatable monster, just like microtransactions. Both should have been nipped in the bud.

 

[Majestic_Manatee]

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-epic-games-store-is-spyware-how-a-toxic-accusation-was-started-by-anti-chinese-sentiment

https://forum.facepunch.com/general/bvnqr/Epic-Games-Store-Is-Shit-But-It-s-Not-Spyware/1/

 

[CritialGaming]

Epic Game Store is owned by an unethical Chinese corporation, Tencent, lacks any security whatsoever and is prone to stealing private info, parasites off Steam's own private and personal data, and is prone to hacks and email leaks.

Steam may be overrun with low to no quality porn games, but atleast it has security. Plus Epic is really making me realize that Steam is a better service than I thought. It still has tons of room for improvement, but if Epic is the alternative, no thanks.

Unfortunately, people are prone to petty spite, and I think Epic will become a undefeatable monster, just like microtransactions. Both should have been nipped in the bud.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/steam-data-leak-reveals-precise-player-count-for-thousands-of-games/

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8q8abp/a-huge-steam-screwup-leaked-users-account-info-and-valve-isnt-talking

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/53dmqb/the-saddest-funniest-and-strangest-ftc-complaints-against-valve

The post above me links to a forum where people have proven Epic isn't leaking personal info (yet). Yet here are a few articles that prove that Steam also had info leak problems. So wipe that bias off the table because it is nothing more than a flimsy excuse.

Don't like Epic and don't use their store, that's up to you. But don't get pissed off that they are getting exclusives because they every platform has exclusive placements. And people complaining about it just because it's the new thing to complain about are just fooling themselves.

It's juvenile nothing more.

 

[Kyrian007]

Exclusive to Epic... this presents a problem. I'd buy it on day 1 just to throw my pocketbook "fuck you" to everyone complaining about the exclusivity. But I already boycott day one purchases from AAA publishers on principle protesting predatory lootboxes, microtransactions... things that are actually anti-consumer practices rather than just a company choosing to sell on the platform that gives them the best deal.

So I guess a day 2 purchase will have to be enough of a "fuck you." After all, I was going to wait for reviews and a price drop until I heard all the hubbub over the exclusivity. Now I can make that day 2 full-priced purchase secure in the knowledge that somewhere a butthurt Valve fanboy weeps. Haw Haw.

Epic Game Store is terrible. Don't let your hate for Steam make you make bad decisions. If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

Mostly its because I'm old enough to remember when exclusivity WAS an issue. When it meant paywalling a game behind having to upgrade a pc or buy an entire console. When an exclusive game meant people who couldn't afford ALL the consoles AND a high end PC COULD NOT PLAY games exclusive to the console they didn't have. This current issue of Epic exclusives... compared to that it just isn't an issue. So many of us, myself included, gave Steam a pass for so many years on so many things we normally complained about. Return policies we would have railed at brick and mortar stores for and for such a long time Steam didn't even allow returns. DRM, we constantly complained about how DRM didn't work and made games worse... Steam IS DRM AND allows publishers to add even more DRM. I'll continue to use Steam. They have great sales and already have the lions share of control over my own game library. But I'm not going to complain about another company trying to muscle their way into the distribution game. Any other competitor is a long way from knocking Steam off the top of the hill and as far as I'm concerned anyone who wants to try is welcome to as long at it nets me some better prices.

 

[Dalisclock]

Steam may be overrun with low to no quality porn games, but atleast it has security. Plus Epic is really making me realize that Steam is a better service than I thought. It still has tons of room for improvement, but if Epic is the alternative, no thanks.

Then why don't they? Seriously, Epic is giving them a freebie right now to fix themselves by having a crappy storefront without a shopping cart. Valve can learn from this now and start actually fixing the issues people have been getting on their case about for years now, or they can wait until Epic really does become a threat, because at some point Epic is gonna fix their storefront woes(and perhaps some of their others as well) and then Steam isn't gonna have that in their favor anymore.

Maybe Valve time applies to Steam, as well as their games.

If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

I already do, but there's plenty of games that just don't come to GOG, or they come to GOG so much later then Steam that I've probably grabbed it from Steam already by that point. Kinda of the same reason I don't use Humble Bundle much, because 90% of what I'd want to grab from Humble Bundle I've already purchased elsewhere.

I want to grab Baba is You, but GOG doesn't have it yet and eventually I might just break down and buy it on Steam unless GOG announces it first. Fuck, I'd really love to play Celeste and the only reason I don't own it yet is because I'd much rather buy it from GOG then Steam, but GOG for some reason still doesn't have or hasn't announced it yet.

I would be nice if GOG could have some kind of way to announce "Hey, these games will be coming to the GOG storefront in ".

 

[Saelune]

Steam may be overrun with low to no quality porn games, but atleast it has security. Plus Epic is really making me realize that Steam is a better service than I thought. It still has tons of room for improvement, but if Epic is the alternative, no thanks.

Then why don't they? Seriously, Epic is giving them a freebie right now to fix themselves by having a crappy storefront without a shopping cart. Valve can learn from this now and start actually fixing the issues people have been getting on their case about for years now, or they can wait until Epic really does become a threat, because at some point Epic is gonna fix their storefront woes(and perhaps some of their others as well) and then Steam isn't gonna have that in their favor anymore.

Maybe Valve time applies to Steam, as well as their games.

If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

I already do, but there's plenty of games that just don't come to GOG, or they come to GOG so much later then Steam that I've probably grabbed it from Steam already by that point. Kinda of the same reason I don't use Humble Bundle much, because 90% of what I'd want to grab from Humble Bundle I've already purchased elsewhere.

I want to grab Baba is You, but GOG doesn't have it yet and eventually I might just break down and buy it on Steam unless GOG announces it first. Fuck, I'd really love to play Celeste and the only reason I don't own it yet is because I'd much rather buy it from GOG then Steam, but GOG for some reason still doesn't have or hasn't announced it yet.

I would be nice if GOG could have some kind of way to announce "Hey, these games will be coming to the GOG storefront in ".

Except more likely either A) Epic wont make a dent in Steam, and Steam wont have to do anything, or B) Epic will show that shittier anti-consumer practices are better and they will lower their own quality and practices.

For competition to have a positive effect, it needs to show that being better really is more profitable.

Epic is not the hero so many want them to be.

 

[Dalisclock]

Steam may be overrun with low to no quality porn games, but atleast it has security. Plus Epic is really making me realize that Steam is a better service than I thought. It still has tons of room for improvement, but if Epic is the alternative, no thanks.

Then why don't they? Seriously, Epic is giving them a freebie right now to fix themselves by having a crappy storefront without a shopping cart. Valve can learn from this now and start actually fixing the issues people have been getting on their case about for years now, or they can wait until Epic really does become a threat, because at some point Epic is gonna fix their storefront woes(and perhaps some of their others as well) and then Steam isn't gonna have that in their favor anymore.

Maybe Valve time applies to Steam, as well as their games.

If you want to 'stick it to Valve', support GoG. They stand as competition against Steam while remaining above board and worth while.

I already do, but there's plenty of games that just don't come to GOG, or they come to GOG so much later then Steam that I've probably grabbed it from Steam already by that point. Kinda of the same reason I don't use Humble Bundle much, because 90% of what I'd want to grab from Humble Bundle I've already purchased elsewhere.

I want to grab Baba is You, but GOG doesn't have it yet and eventually I might just break down and buy it on Steam unless GOG announces it first. Fuck, I'd really love to play Celeste and the only reason I don't own it yet is because I'd much rather buy it from GOG then Steam, but GOG for some reason still doesn't have or hasn't announced it yet.

I would be nice if GOG could have some kind of way to announce "Hey, these games will be coming to the GOG storefront in ".

Except more likely either A) Epic wont make a dent in Steam, and Steam wont have to do anything, or B) Epic will show that shittier anti-consumer practices are better and they will lower their own quality and practices.

For competition to have a positive effect, it needs to show that being better really is more profitable.

Epic is not the hero so many want them to be.

I never said Epic was a hero. I honestly just want Steam to fix their fucking shit. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. If Epic is the one who actually makes them take notice and start doing so, fine. If Epic ends up being a comparable(if not better) service, also fine.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Except more likely either A) Epic wont make a dent in Steam, and Steam wont have to do anything, or B) Epic will show that shittier anti-consumer practices are better and they will lower their own quality and practices.

For competition to have a positive effect, it needs to show that being better really is more profitable.

Epic is not the hero so many want them to be.

Just to be clear, right now Epic is both taking a smaller cut of sales, giving more revenue to publishers and developers (or, in the case of Metro Exodus, leading to a price cut so the game got cheaper), and giving away quality games for free constantly. On top of that Epic has a clear roadmap for all the core features they want in EGS, which includes pretty much all the stuff Steam is doing.

Is Epic a hero? Nope, it is just another company trying to make a profit, just like Valve. But we can't accuse Epic of not caring for potential customers, both on the development and the consumer side, when they are giving better terms to devs then Steam and are giving consumers free stuff that can cost upwards of 30 USD on Steam. There's a lot of room for improvement, obviously, but Epic is not worse then Valve at this point.

 

[Kwak]

On top of that Epic has a clear roadmap for all the core features they want in EGS, which includes pretty much all the stuff Steam is doing.

They 'road-mapped' adding a basic shopping cart.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

On top of that Epic has a clear roadmap for all the core features they want in EGS, which includes pretty much all the stuff Steam is doing.

They 'road-mapped' adding a basic shopping cart.

Sure, but does the lack of basic functionality make Epic evil? Or does it mean they rushed EGS out the door as quickly as they possibly could? I'm not saying EGS is good, I'm saying that Epic at this point can't be accused of somehow being more "anti-consumer" then Valve are. Epic are literally giving away good games for free, that's decidedly not "anti-consumer".

 

[Saelune]

Except more likely either A) Epic wont make a dent in Steam, and Steam wont have to do anything, or B) Epic will show that shittier anti-consumer practices are better and they will lower their own quality and practices.

For competition to have a positive effect, it needs to show that being better really is more profitable.

Epic is not the hero so many want them to be.

Just to be clear, right now Epic is both taking a smaller cut of sales, giving more revenue to publishers and developers (or, in the case of Metro Exodus, leading to a price cut so the game got cheaper), and giving away quality games for free constantly. On top of that Epic has a clear roadmap for all the core features they want in EGS, which includes pretty much all the stuff Steam is doing.

Is Epic a hero? Nope, it is just another company trying to make a profit, just like Valve. But we can't accuse Epic of not caring for potential customers, both on the development and the consumer side, when they are giving better terms to devs then Steam and are giving consumers free stuff that can cost upwards of 30 USD on Steam. There's a lot of room for improvement, obviously, but Epic is not worse then Valve at this point.

Epic is not pro-consumer. Certainly not more than Steam if this is your criteria. For one, Epic is doing what drug dealers do. 'The first is free, then you're stuck'. Second Steam gives games for free often, and gives great deals all the time.

But Steam also works and doesn't invade your privacy like Epic does.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Epic is not pro-consumer. Certainly not more than Steam if this is your criteria. For one, Epic is doing what drug dealers do. 'The first is free, then you're stuck'. Second Steam gives games for free often, and gives great deals all the time.

But Steam also works and doesn't invade your privacy like Epic does.

First off, games aren't addictive in the same way drugs are, so that comparison goes right out the window. At worst Epic is doing the traditional thing of a new store giving away gifts to early customers.
As for Steam 'often' giving games for free, it does occasionally give out games free. However, those games are often older, cheaper or less well-received then what Epic has been giving out. Steam doesn't have a constant "free game of the week/month" like Epic currently does either.

As for the privacy invasion, this has already been settled by people far more into computers than me. In fact, Shamus Young already covered that on this very website [https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/04/02/the-epic-games-store-needs-work/] (section is Claim: EGS is Spyware). Quoted relevant passage:

Unlike Steam, EGS will allow you to close the client even if a game is running. You can test this yourself by launching a game, then alt-tabbing back to EGS and closing it. It?s nice to be able to close the client, but it leaves EGS in the odd position where it needs to look around to see if any of its games are already running when you start it. It needs to know this so that it can correctly replace the usual launch button with a label telling you the game is running. It also needs this information so it doesn?t try to do anything crazy like attempting to update a game while you?re playing it.

I?m not sure why it needs to look at root certificates, but I suspect that a lot of the things EGS is doing are anti-cheat. Industry juggernaut Fortnite runs from this launcher, and so there are safeguards built into the system to stop cheaters.

As I've been saying over and over in these discussions, I don't think Epic are doing all that great or are especially noble or worthy of praise. However, there's a lot of really poor arguments (yours included) being flung around in an attempt to discredit the EGS. What it all seems to come down to is that people want to continue using Steam as their exclusive place to get games and are ready to rationalize it by using any argument they hear. All so that they don't have to admit to themselves that the reason they aren't using EGS isn't that it is the worst thing since Ebola, but rather because they prefer Steam. Preferring Steam is perfectly alright, no need to get defensive about it.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I can't wait. I can't count how many hours I spent on BL2.

Same!

This could be the game that could get my back to pc gaming (stopped due to work life made me played more mobile games).

Guess I'm bias since I adored that game and knowing the game means they know how to pleased me in a way!

Yes it look the same as the previous games and I'm OK with that. I mean seriously? What's the needs for the sequel to be different from the last one? Sure I can understand like a radical graphic upgrade like Halo but BL isn't an console exclusive. One of the hyped for me is being able to explore other worlds, which the previous games didn't do! That's one of the biggest changes there!

Also I still find it funny how other looter shooters game that came after BL never really supasses it like Destiny and Anthen and did BL patent the Mad Max/ dirt and grit aethistic or something. Desyinry and Anthen went with the sleek and smooth future which honestly I am getting bored of so BL is still a welcome to me!

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

It looks like more Borderlands and that's fine by me. I probably wont be buying it from Epic, though. So that's an extra 6 month wait for me. I'll be particularly excited if Borderlands doesn't fall victim to the lootbox craze.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

Epic Store teams up with an authoritarian, state-run, dystopic, media company to fuck over gamers. More at 11.

No, but seriously I am buying a used copy.