this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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The epic hate is tiresome. It sounds like they functioned as a publisher here, providing long term funding of development prior to release. The game isn't exclusive and has no DRM, I see no downside to this. Stop hopping on bandwagons of hate and enjoy your games people.
Yeah, with a launcher- and DRM-free version, I think the hate is quite misplaced here. It's especially extreme on reddit. There is an irony of people who are supposedly against exclusivity writing things like "No steam no purchase.". I guarantee those people never complain about a Steam-exclusive game not being on GoG or EGS.
Do you have any examples of Valve buying up studios and pulling them from other online stores?
Epic game them money for funding. There's a major difference. Sure they can self fund, but getting funding from a major studio can be a life changer for a small studio.
It wasn't pulled from Steam. A development company consisting of three people that put out a popular mobile game 15+ years ago got an opportunity they wouldn't otherwise have had to create a sequel and took it. They published on (shockedpikachuface) their publishers platform, as well as Nintendo consoles and their own website for people who don't like Epic. I doubt Allan, Kyle and Kyle would have had the funds or skill to do this on their own.
I wasn't referring to World of Goo, I was talking about Epic paying studios to pull their games from other stores.
The conversation was about why people are fine with Steam exclusives, and why the general hate on Epic. The answer is obvious.
That's not the point, because that's not the situation here. The game isn't exclusive, wasn't pulled from any stores and was funded by Epic games. You don't see Valve-published or funded games on EGS either.
There are games where the criticism against Epic was completely valid. This isn't one of those.
I think it would be easier for me to empathize with the "exclusivity" argument if it weren't for the fact that PCs as a general rule are inherently open. I don't have to buy a new computer to install a new games launcher as I would with a console exclusives war. Hell most of the time you don't even have to install the official launcher as so many of them are just web wrappers/electron apps. I've been using the Heroic Games Launcher to claim my free Epic games for nearly a year and the only "downside", if you can even call it that, is that I don't get the weekly popup's letting me know what's free/on sale. Just building a huge library of free games, some of which I already own on Steam. Somebody please show me the actual downside of more competition on a single platform.
I didn't say it was the case here. I quoted the point I responded to.
My post was talking specifically about peoples' reactions to the World of Goo 2 launch though, including the part you quoted.
Its stupid that they're able to effectively pay the developer to not work with their competition, but thats relatively minor seeing as the developer is still independent and still able to self-publish. I get why people are mad about it though, seeing as it is still kinda anticompetitive and Epic has a long track record of doing much worse.
There is a downside. The best looking option - the developer website option - comes without regional pricing. This makes it the worst option for many.
People like having stuff on their Steam account because there is a value to that. Other people should stop acting like it doesn't matter.
Letting Fortnite money fund some developer is only good for that developer (and for some time), not the industry.
It's DRM free. Pirate it and add an external game to Steam if the other options are unappealing to you.
I doubt devs meant that side of "woohoo our game is DRM free". Even if that would be fine by me, you can see they are missing a lot. Cool if the developer got so much money they don't care about sales. But that could mean they also don't care much about user satisfaction or feedback.
I find it so frustrating you’re being downvoted for a sane opinion.
I want Lemmy to succeed, but the userbase can be so mean :(
Why shouldn’t he be downvoted? A downvote isn’t rude, and it’s not an indicator of how sane the opinion is. It indicates that the comment misses the point. They assume it’s about DRM, or that Epic didn’t to enough to deserve exclusivity, or that it’s not a true exclusive because you can pay the developer directly.
It’s not. It’s just about not wanting another launcher that doesn’t bring anything to the table. GOG is for old games, Itch is for small indies, and Steam is for everything else.
Epic is just Steam but worse, doesn’t work well on Steam Deck, with some exclusives that will hit Steam in a year. Doesn’t offer anything new or improved, just makes things worse by splitting a market by paying off developers, and because it doesn’t offer anything compelling, will probably die of when Epic eventually wastes all its Fortnite money and falls on hard times.
I wouldn’t give them a penny, they’re actively working to make PC gaming a worse experience when Steam arguably brought it back from the brink of death. Before Steam, PCs were about to become MMO and RTS machines. It’s hard to overstate how big their impact was.
I still fail to see the point. Then don't use Epic? You can get the game from the website, you need exactly 0 launchers for the game
That’s a separate issue, I want the benefits of a launcher, just not Epic’s.
The comment does not miss the point. You’re thinking from the perspective of a consumer, not a business.
Without Epic, World of Goo 2 would not exist.
If I was World of Goo’s developers, I would much rather have a job than not.
Why would I think from the perspective of a business? I’m not a business, I’m a consumer. I’m not saying they were wrong for taking the money, they gotta do what they gotta do. I’m saying I don’t want it and don’t want to support it.
The original comment was basically asking why Epic got so much hate when in this specific circumstance, their actions are justifiable or even actually produced something of value.
I said they are missing the point which is just that people don’t like Epic and their influence on PC gaming, and you said I need to think like a business.
I think you’re arguing something totally different now.
Sure it would. "wow, this publisher sponsored their development" - that's cool, but that's literally their purpose and there are hundreds of other publishers though. If epic had never existed, they would simply have gotten the same service from another damn publisher.