For some context on the Epic Games Store debacle, read my two previous blog posts about it here and here.
Epic Games has been trying to engage in a hostile takeover of the PC digital store market by essentially bribing game developers to publish exclusively on their platform. In many cases, especially when it comes to indie developers, this means that promised and even already-purchased Steam keys for the games are never delivered, and promises are broken. Epic Games is trying to create a monopoly status for themselves when it comes to all these games they are bribing the developers for.
And they are most probably going to get away with it. It's very possible that they will become one of the largest digital stores on PC, no matter how much their storefront sucks and how many people they have to screw over.
Why? Because the number of people who are in the know and deliberately boycott the Epic Games store can be counted in the thousands, while the number of other gamers that don't know nor care can be counted in the millions.
This means that for every person that boycotts the Epic Games store there will be a thousand people who don't care, and will just purchase their games wherever they are available and cheapest. If a game is only available on the Epic Games store and they want it, they'll just purchase it there, and use it as the launcher for the game. To them it's all just the same. It's a game, they buy it, they launch it, they play it. They don't care about any marketing politics that may or may not be happening behind the scenes.
I am not blaming them. This is a completely reasonable behavior and thinking. Why should the average person stress about such things? It's just a video game. Who cares about politics? Buy the game, play it, have fun. There's nothing wrong with it.
But it does mean that Epic Games will get away with their shady tactics, and there's nothing that can be done about it. It's just a fact of life.
Do you remember when Valve published Half-Life 2, and it required their Steam launcher? It did cause quite a controversy back then. What? You don't remember that? Well, I don't blame you, because almost nobody else does either. It has since long been forgotten, and Steam has become ubiquitous and completely accepted by pretty much the entire worldwide gaming community.
Do you remember when the first PC games came out with paid day-1 DLC? That caused an even larger controversy. People were not getting the entire game at once, but had to pay even more money to get the entire game, in addition to its normal purchasing price? Ludicrous!
Yet today we consider day-1 DLC completely normal. Nobody complains about it anymore. (Ok, some people still might, but nobody pays attention to them.)
These things become normal because people just get tired of it, and the controversy passes. At some point people stop complaining and fighting against it. Then they grudgingly just accept it. Then it becomes normal. Then, after some years, less and less people even remember that there was some kind of controversy surrounding it. After enough time passes, nobody remembers it anymore, and it has become a completely normal everyday thing that everybody just accepts.
Epic Games has been trying to engage in a hostile takeover of the PC digital store market by essentially bribing game developers to publish exclusively on their platform. In many cases, especially when it comes to indie developers, this means that promised and even already-purchased Steam keys for the games are never delivered, and promises are broken. Epic Games is trying to create a monopoly status for themselves when it comes to all these games they are bribing the developers for.
And they are most probably going to get away with it. It's very possible that they will become one of the largest digital stores on PC, no matter how much their storefront sucks and how many people they have to screw over.
Why? Because the number of people who are in the know and deliberately boycott the Epic Games store can be counted in the thousands, while the number of other gamers that don't know nor care can be counted in the millions.
This means that for every person that boycotts the Epic Games store there will be a thousand people who don't care, and will just purchase their games wherever they are available and cheapest. If a game is only available on the Epic Games store and they want it, they'll just purchase it there, and use it as the launcher for the game. To them it's all just the same. It's a game, they buy it, they launch it, they play it. They don't care about any marketing politics that may or may not be happening behind the scenes.
I am not blaming them. This is a completely reasonable behavior and thinking. Why should the average person stress about such things? It's just a video game. Who cares about politics? Buy the game, play it, have fun. There's nothing wrong with it.
But it does mean that Epic Games will get away with their shady tactics, and there's nothing that can be done about it. It's just a fact of life.
Do you remember when Valve published Half-Life 2, and it required their Steam launcher? It did cause quite a controversy back then. What? You don't remember that? Well, I don't blame you, because almost nobody else does either. It has since long been forgotten, and Steam has become ubiquitous and completely accepted by pretty much the entire worldwide gaming community.
Do you remember when the first PC games came out with paid day-1 DLC? That caused an even larger controversy. People were not getting the entire game at once, but had to pay even more money to get the entire game, in addition to its normal purchasing price? Ludicrous!
Yet today we consider day-1 DLC completely normal. Nobody complains about it anymore. (Ok, some people still might, but nobody pays attention to them.)
These things become normal because people just get tired of it, and the controversy passes. At some point people stop complaining and fighting against it. Then they grudgingly just accept it. Then it becomes normal. Then, after some years, less and less people even remember that there was some kind of controversy surrounding it. After enough time passes, nobody remembers it anymore, and it has become a completely normal everyday thing that everybody just accepts.
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