The Division 2 is skipping Steam

[Chazore]

Raven722 said:

Thank you both for this. I was unaware of this despite having used Steam for years. This certainly changes my opinion on how Steam handles itself. As far as Epic Games Store goes, my hope is that exclusivity doesn't work and Epic has to find a new angle to try and break into the market. That Ubisoft tries this and it doesn't work out and serves as a warning to other companies that making your games exclusive to certain platforms, at least those that are not your own, isn't a profitable endeavor. None of these other stores seem to have the features Steam does. Epic Games Store itself is rather bare bones by comparison. 

It's my pleasure. I just want to make sure people on here know that Steam definitely does provide you with the means to wipe away what you don't want to see, vs what you want to see more of. People just have to try it and see what they can do with what they will/want.

See, while some think Epic is "healthy" competition, in reality it is, just for devs, but for us, no, we're actually going to be offsetting the bulk of the costs that devs/Steam would normally pay onto us, rather than entirely onto Epic:

Epic Games store now supports 30 different regions (130 countries in total) for regional prices. We don't have local pricing for all the countries yet, but that's a start.

We use US Dollars for now for most of them because adding regional currencies will take time.

— Sergiy Galyonkin (@galyonkin) January 11, 2019

 

If you read the rest of that tweet chain, you'll spot a dev noticing howm this will affect the consumer, and that they do not wish for us to suffer for it. While Epic has to match Steam for regional sector pricing, they seemingly do not want to offset costs on their own end, rather instead that they want to hand it over to us, the consumer. This means that we won't be seeing old Steam level sales all around on their storefront, if anything the prices will either be the same as Steam's, or higher (Like with Origin/Uplay for example with other games, even EA's owned games).

 

Also, I've spoken to a dev behind Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, and he's stated that the price that they launch with on Epic, will remain exactly the same price that they will launch with when it lands on Steam, meaning that they don't want to price according to time passed (because time affects everything, yet Nintendo and this dev seem to think a year shouldn't even lower the price of their game), which naturally would benefit the consumer as well as generate some goodwill and sales (especially when you're exclusively locking yourself to an unpopular storefront).

Don't forget that Epic is still sorely missing in many a thing, from features to consumer support practices to general library size and quality. They already have a few early access games on there, so that must mean they will support all ea games right?, because if they don't, they are being very hypocritical about supporting the devs. They have to support what people call garbage, by allowing ea games to flood their storefront like they flood Steam's, or they risk being called out (and rightfully so, because if you support devs, you should and shall support them all) for not supporting them.

As much as I dislike how many devs are abusing the ea system, I strongly feel like holding Epic to their word, to the tip of their sword. If they don't follow through and support all devs, let alone their obvious venture with ea, then they deserve what comes their way. Had they not boasted about wanting to aid devs, they could have approached selective support easily (which I wouldn't vouch for, since that actually means less good games for us). 

I think the idea with Ubisoft moving over to Epic, is that Ubisoft doesn't like user reviews, as well as how their refund system works. Having and being able to see less is good for Ubisoft, bad for us. At the same time though, they'll make more money with that 88/12 cut from Epic. Meaning they will make 100% from Uplay and 88% from Epic. Ubisoft is just plain greedy though. It's not about what you and I want, it's about more money. 

 

Epic has to shape ship before years end though. They definitely have an assload of cash and power to afford it with. They also have a mega corp like Tencent backing them up and controlling 40% of their company shares, so really, they've zero excuse to not be on, if not above Steam's level by this dec. We should not give them the whole "see you in 5-10yrs time" gig. They've got time and money, but more money and available R&D out there, that time shouldn't even come into the equation.