The Video/PC Game Discussion Thread

What a clear agenda statement from this dev - how do they know the game sold because it's on the Epic Store if they've added their middle finger to the growing pile aimed at Steam?

Also, Epic just threw down the gauntlet to Valve big time by outright saying that they'd stop all exclusives and even consider releasing their own games on Steam if Valve changes to an 88% revenue split.

This time last year I may have considered myself a minor PC gaming enthusiast, but I am so fucked off with the industry right now that I just have zero hype for any new game anymore, because Epic is now making us live in dread of the words 'Epic Store Exclusive' popping up just as hype for a game is started to build up. And if anything my animosity toward them is worse because I allowed myself to be duped into getting Metro Exodus for full price just to have it on Steam as I did not want to have to wait a whole year to play it and it ended up being a disappointment. I did actually enjoy playing Exodus but all the behind the scenes garbage and the fact that it was not long enough to warrant a £50 price tag and did have severe performance issues has really soured my opinion of it. I'd have been happy at £30, which will now be the most I ever pay for a new game that doesn't include DLC in the price. Even if it's Elder Scrolls VI. Perhaps especially if it's Elder Scrolls VI, because Bethesda hasn't exactly endeared itself with me since the Creation Club became a thing. Pain in the arse in Fallout 4 and I don't even use the bloody thing!

But yeah, even though I've been replaying Borderlands 1 in the new enhanced version and still loving it (despite some of the obvious flaws NOT being fixed), the Epic Store and Pitchford between them have caused all my hype for the game to evaporate. Same goes for The Outer Worlds, which as a new IP I'm 99% guaranteed to have forgotten about by the time they deign to release it to us second rate Steam players. Walking Dead's final season being moved to the Epic Store as well has resulted in me having no interest in finishing the previous one. Is that one even coming back to Steam? Or is it forever in the hands of those gits at Epic?

I now have zero upcoming games on the radar that I have any real interest in. Rage 2 maybe, but even though it up for pre-order on Steam (still time for Epic to swoop in) I've lost all interest in that as well. I am totally disillusioned with the whole industry right now. 

The Epic Store oddly reminds me of this kid I knew in school called James (I wouldn't usually use someone's real name in such a story but since it's a common name and I can't for the life of me remember his surname I guess it's okay and I can't be arsed to think of a fake name for him). Like the Epic Store, James was the 'new kid' in town who didn't have any friends, but did have parents with money, much like Epic has Tencent behind it. 

What Epic and James have in common is that they both threw a lot of money around in an effort to buy friends. Where Epic is doing business by cutting rates and paying publishers for exclusives, James made a show of having £20 for school lunch money not just every week, but every single day. £100 per week when in those days you could get a hot school lunch plus drink for around £2 a day. He used this money to gain influence among his fellow pupils by spending most of it on them. He bought his 'friends', same as Epic is buying friends right now. 

Thing is, once James felt he had the friends of choice he wanted, he stopped throwing so much money around. This is also much like Epic, which has already gone on record saying it won't be doing business like it has been forever. Which means people like Randy Pitchford may be surprised when Gearbox has it's next game and find that Epic isn't going to throw so much cash around again. He may change his tune about Steam then, once the playing field has levelled again, much like James' so called friends changed their tune when his money stopped flowing. James did not ultimately stay at my school for very long as his parents moved around a lot, but when he left he had no friends left to miss him. Of course it did not help that James was actually a bit of a twat - the kind that let money go to his head - but that kind of attitude seems to have parallels to Epic as well to my thinking. 

Morale of this story: you can't buy friendship. Or loyalty. Epic is going to have to throw large amounts of cash at publishers and developers forever now it has set a precedent for doing so, or it will lose what loyalty it has purchased. Publishers aren't going to release on their lesser platform without that cash incentive. They're dumb for ignoring their fanbases as it is, but they'll soon realise it when Epic isn't any more attractive than Steam or any other store. Likewise, even though review bombing is not the way to go (though Exodus players actually did it reasonably okay by actually leaving positive reviews along with dissatisfaction over the Epic Store), Steam players are only acting the way they are because unlike Epic, Steam has actually earned it's brand loyalty. A little thing Randy Pitchford and those like him tend to forget when they're seeing $£$£$£$.

As a final note, I had nothing against James at the time or now. I actually think he was a pretty lonely kid due to moving around a lot, so he likely acted the way he did because it was a quick way to get company for the time he was in one place. In truth, I felt sorry for him. However my friend group were not among the ones he attempted to buy (apparently we weren't deemed cool enough - in those days cool being synonymous with 'disruptive influence') and our attempts to genuinely befriend him were rudely rebuffed.