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I funded the Apollo 8 documentary which turned out pretty good.

I had a pretty good track record until now. Crowdfunded some half a dozen games.

Did they ever explicitly promise steam? You said you had the expectation of steam, but was it ever Stated?
If so, they suck, if not, then I'm confused what you're mad about.

sweatshopking wrote:

Did they ever explicitly promise steam? You said you had the expectation of steam, but was it ever Stated?
If so, they suck, if not, then I'm confused what you're mad about.

Yep, the project initially launched with Steam/GOG delivery.

sweatshopking wrote:

Did they ever explicitly promise steam? You said you had the expectation of steam, but was it ever Stated?
If so, they suck, if not, then I'm confused what you're mad about.

The Fig page still states Steam/GOG keys.

Further - EGS is such an objectively bad platform I can't imagine people wanting to use it via being forced to use it. Security issues up the wazoo and a severe lack of features even as a storefront make it useless.

Yeah, it was straight up stated and you picked the one you wanted. Same deal for the preorders, which is where I come into the mix. Given that both Steam and GOG people tend to have strong feelings about their favored platform, the blowback is hardly surprising.

morphine wrote:

I had a pretty good track record until now. Crowdfunded some half a dozen games.

Well let's be fair, this is a shady move but there's every indication that they're still capable of delivering a game. So I wouldn't put this in the same fail bucket as, say, the ill fated Neal Stephenson swordplay project (my own confirmed KS derp) where nothing of substance ever materialized.

Likewise, I don't really blame Epic for this. And even Snapshot may have a leg to stand on, as Gollop has indicated that bag of gold in question was large enough to buy out all of the backers and the refund process seems to be straightforward enough. Perhaps this mess is just another example of why trusting other people is always a bad idea.

Personally, I'm still leaning toward refunding my box edition preorder and waiting until it shows up on GOG. It does sound like the Epic version would pass the LCT, so it has that going for it, but the way this has been handled is less than ideal and leaves me wondering if it be a slippery slope. I'm gonna think about it some more before making any decisions though. The sad thing is, if they'd just grandfathered the existing backers and preorders there wouldn't have been any real issue.

Voldenuit wrote:

My objection to EGS is that they are buying up exclusivity deals to build up marketshare.

By giving devs a better cut of the sale? I'm not seeing how that equates to buying up exclusivity deals. Steam and whoever could do the exact same thing if they wanted to. Heck, Discord does.

It's not about the price difference. They're explicitly paying developers to only sell their games on the Epic Store. That's what's at issue here...Phoenix Point was originally going to be sold on Steam/GOG/wherever else, but per the terms of this deal it'll only be available on the Epic Store for the first year after launch and then maybe on other platforms, with people who wanted a Steam/GOG key getting a EGS key and later on a Steam/GOG key only after the exclusivity period ends. A number of backers and preorders either don't like EGS outright or are tightly coupled with their preferred platform, hence all the nerd rage.

Which, it should be noted, is a fairly common business practice outside the PC world. It's a strategic move to pay some money up front to attract customers that'll hopefully stick around and buy more than just the thing being subsidized. It's how Microsoft and Sony so quickly unhorsed Nintendo, and I think that Valve may have done some of that too in the early days of Steam though I can't remember for sure.

LostCat wrote:

Voldenuit wrote:

My objection to EGS is that they are buying up exclusivity deals to build up marketshare.

By giving devs a better cut of the sale? I'm not seeing how that equates to buying up exclusivity deals. Steam and whoever could do the exact same thing if they wanted to. Heck, Discord does.

If Epic was simply giving developers a bigger cut, they would be crazy to stop selling their games on the biggest game market on PC.

It's widely reported that Epic is paying actual money for the exclusivity, as well as guaranteed minimum sales (if the game doesn't meet the target, Epic agrees to pay the difference).

Voldenuit wrote:

It's widely reported that Epic is paying actual money for the exclusivity, as well as guaranteed minimum sales (if the game doesn't meet the target, Epic agrees to pay the difference).

Fair enough if true. I don't recall reading that.

I've only bought three games from em so far, but it's my preferred storefront at the moment.

LostCat wrote:

By giving devs a better cut of the sale? I'm not seeing how that equates to buying up exclusivity deals. Steam and whoever could do the exact same thing if they wanted to. Heck, Discord does.

Bigger cuts of sales plus huge amounts of cash along with guaranteed minimum sales.

I mean, it's almost the same, but not really.

morphine wrote:

I had a pretty good track record until now. Crowdfunded some half a dozen games.

At least you didn't crowd-fund Paprium back in 2014. It still hasn't shipped, and the developer has gone completely AWOL.

I've only crowd-funded one game, which was from a dev with a track record, and it shipped more than a year later than advertised. It's fine-ish, because BattleTech wound up being a really good game, but I won't crowdfund anything going forward.

So, recent findings indicate that Epic is datamining user's Steam account data and friends lists.

Some points to consider:
1. Steam has an API for users and apps to share account data. Epic is bypassing the API and directly datamining the information from files in your steam folder.
2. Steam will not share your data if you set your account as 'Private'. Epic is ignoring this and grabbing your data anyway (which is probably why they're digging it up themselves instead of using the API).
3. Epic says they're only doing this "in case you want to import your friends list", but at best, they're pre-emptively collecting the data before asking the user for permission, and they've already collected the data even if you say "no" when they ask you.
4. Epic says the file is not uploaded to their servers until you give the permission, but that is not a water-tight statement (for instance, they could be grabbing metadata even if they don't directly access the information collected, or they could be uploading specific bits of information without uploading the whole file).
5. WTF? WTF, Epic.

EDIT: No, I don't personally think this is some conspiracy by the Chinese government to find out how many hours of L4D2 I played, nor do I think Epic has some grand supervillain plan in place that hinges on using my data, but at the very least, their actions display a disdain for their users' privacy, and a lack of transparency in their actions.

EDIT2: Tim Sweeney has commented on this, and promised to not access localconfig.vdf before requesting user permission in future versions of Epic client.

Wow.

That's not exactly cool.

lol from the name "Phoenix Point" I thought this was about a chipset, and then started wondering why the hell a chipset needed to be on an online distribution platform.

Epic sure is working overtime to piss everybody off these days. Sad times, because it wasn't that long ago that they were one of the good guys. But then so was EA in the 90s, look how that turned out.

NovusBogus wrote:

Epic sure is working overtime to piss everybody off these days. Sad times, because it wasn't that long ago that they were one of the good guys. But then so was EA in the 90s, look how that turned out.

It's funny, because pretty much anything everyone said can be explained by them being new to this.

This is the biggest storm in a teacup I remember in the last ten years.

The next time I get pulled over I'll say "Sorry officer, but I'm kinda new to this". Think that'll work?

I have no dog in this fight, but yeah that is a pretty cheap trick. Insert Vader meme here.

I think overall this is lame. As long as people who get refunded, actually get refunded I'm eye roll lame category. I will say 30 day refund only on a possible 4 week refund, is a bit nerve racking.

Epic has been around since the early 1990s and Tim Sweeney is of the same vintage as Carmack and Newell so they don't really get to play the noob card. They do get to play the 'everyone else is doing it' card if they want to, but that one's more of an indictment of the entire tech sector than a vindication of Epic.

NovusBogus wrote:

Epic has been around since the early 1990s and Tim Sweeney is of the same vintage as Carmack and Newell so they don't really get to play the noob card.

Epic Games Store, on the other hand, has been around what roughly a week or two? (Obviously not literally.)

Redocbew wrote:

The next time I get pulled over I'll say "Sorry officer, but I'm kinda new to this". Think that'll work?

If your only crime is not having as fancy a car as the other guy, sure.

Dude, seriously. You think there's no way for Epic to figure out how to run a store in an industry that they arguably helped create?

But, if you have some kind of nerd-crush on EGS, then I guess that's fine. I don't get it, but I guess it's like having that friend who has a girlfriend that's obviously nothing but trouble and everyone can see it except him. You know it's not going to end well, but you smile and nod and hold your tongue, because it's only going to make things worse otherwise.

Redocbew wrote:

Dude, seriously. You think there's no way for Epic to figure out how to run a store in an industry that they arguably helped create?

But, if you have some kind of nerd-crush on EGS, then I guess that's fine. I don't get it, but I guess it's like having that friend who has a girlfriend that's obviously nothing but trouble and everyone can see it except him. You know it's not going to end well, but you smile and nod and hold your tongue, because it's only going to make things worse otherwise.

I honestly don't care about EGSes supposed successes or failings. Right now it's my preferred store. It works right, it's not full of garbage, and it doesn't have a lot of extra crap I don't want or need.

Though the features are due to improve a lot this year, for those who actually give a ****.

Steam is so full of garbage I don't even know why I should use it anymore, and has lost almost every major developer/publisher I want to play stuff from. I still use it to chat with people.

I don't blame Epic for what they're doing, but if they play Internet games they're going to win Internet prizes. Especially in 2019, when customers are finally starting to get actionably pissed off with the arrogance and bad behavior that's run rampant in the software industry ever since management decided that just shipping stable, value-adding software at a fair price was sooo 20th century.

It always seems like cruft is the price of popularity. It doesn't help that many of these storefronts really feel like offering products to consumers is a secondary goal, and the primary one is just a big advertisement for how awesome X megacorp really is.

Yup. Steam is stuffed full of half baked features that haven't been touched in years. Steam music player, anyone? The best news from Valve in years is that they're giving up on selling films through Steam. They really need to focus on improving the core experience of finding and buying games, and stop messing around.