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Epic starts an online store


lowenz

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Valve lied to us, promising lower prices because of no physical boxes, discs, and no distribution costs. None of it was true, as games cost the same as physical ones. And without being bound by natural supply/demand, Valve is in direct control of the economy. That's why older games on Steam can be so ridiculously expensive, since prices are reasonable only during Steam sales. I wonder if Epic will take the same route in the long run.

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lot of valve selling games at full price was due to interferrence by the eu government for people in europe, and other governments elsewhere, they got buggered by the recomended retail price, being the rrp on all goods whether they were online or a physical copy, the price had to be the same else companies got done by european court of justice in europe and who ever controls the rules in other countries for setting the recomended retail price on items.

eg

game in a box rrp of £/$25.00 + sale tax or vat

game online rrp of £/$25.00 + sale tax or vat

 

the eu government decided the price for game in box in a store and a game in a online store would be the same, other governments followed suit, or they got forced into it by the eu.

 

original the price diffference would have been about 30 percent less for the online game version.

in the eu most games in a box is just a steam game code, or a game launcher game code, eg uplay(ubisoft)/origin(EA)/

or a code to use on the xbox platform or sony playform.

so for most games now the physical copy is the box, and the game is downloaded from online.

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Another problem is, they decided to have a simple conversion factor for in EUR all European countries. And while the most wealthy countries use that currency, there are also poorer countries that still use their own, and the exchange rate is a bitch. In my case it's 4,45. I recently wanted to buy TES Oblivion, as I had a physical copy once, but I gave / thrown it away at some point. Not sure whether 19.99 EUR is a lot for you for such an old game, but for me paying over 4 times more in my local currency is ridiculous.

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Valve lied to us, promising lower prices because of no physical boxes, discs, and no distribution costs. None of it was true, as games cost the same as physical ones. And without being bound by natural supply/demand, Valve is in direct control of the economy. That's why older games on Steam can be so ridiculously expensive, since prices are reasonable only during Steam sales.

 

One question: Do you play (and buy) console games? Talking of ridiculous prices. PC players are totally spoiled in regards to prices.

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I did in the X360 era. And yeah, 50-60 EUR games meant 250 here. Imagine paying 250 EUR for a game... But in brick-and-mortar stores that was properly discounted within weeks or months after launch. With digital sales, the need to have efficient flow of goods on the sales floor is gone, so the prices can stay high forever. Console players get cheaper hardware, but they pay a lot in games' prices, probably exceeding the amoun't you'd spend on a high end gaming PC, if we're talking average console lifecycle. PC gamers have to pay more for the hardware, but software is cheaper.

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All i can say is that the prices in the Xbox Store are a LOT higher than the prices on Steam. And the kids still seem to buy. Bit of a chicken <-> egg thing. And, i can't say i can really complain about Steam. I bought loads of cheap games there, discounted or not. Of course, if the name is Bethesda or Rockstar Games, you won't see cheap prices so soon, because, again, the kids buy.

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All i can say is that the prices in the Xbox Store are a LOT higher than the prices on Steam. And the kids still seem to buy. Bit of a chicken <-> egg thing. And, i can't say i can really complain about Steam. I bought loads of cheap games there, discounted or not. Of course, if the name is Bethesda or Rockstar Games, you won't see cheap prices so soon, because, again, the kids buy.

Its not fair to compare console and PC prices as console hardware is subsidised by game prices. Same as with cheap printers: The hardware is sold under value and the ink is absurdly overpriced.

Consoles are good for casual gamers (no judgement) playing a few games occasionally, while PCs are good for hardcore gamers and hoarders.

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I doubt that that is the reason for the prices. The reason is rather that they get the money they ask for. Let's pretend you buy a gaming PC for 1.500 €, and, in the process, you buy 200 Steam games. Isn't the price for the hardware pretty neglectable then? The vast majority won't buy a new PC after 3 or 4 years, but rather after 6, 7 or 8 years, if even.

 

If you take a look at the console games, there are so many DLC's you can buy for the more popular games, that you can easily dump 200 € and more for one game. You'll easily touch the price of the PC hardware with 6 or 7 games like that. Another point is surely also that the PC doesn't have the market share it used to have for games either.

Edited by chakkman
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I doubt that that is the reason for the prices. The reason is rather that they get the money they ask for.

I compared the console situation with the cheap inkjets for a reason. Of course it gets abused a bit.

Once you got regular people to buy some device they are more likely to buy stuff compatible to that instead of buying a new, more versatile, device that can do the same and is more cost efficient in the long run - but more expensive short term.

Also, most console gamers do not buy hundreds of games - but less than ten. If you are not needing a PC anyway and you only play occasionally and pretty much always the same games, you are probably better off buying a console - despite the games beeing overpriced a lot.

For that gamer profile, the comfort factor of not needing to know anything about drivers and stuff (yes, it is pretty easy shit, but a lot of people are still scared by that), might be an additional incentive to spend more on games. A lot of people see the golden cage as a feature, they are willing to pay a premium for.

 

Regarding DLCs: That problem definitely is not console-exclusive. But on the PC you can just wait some years and they give you the GotY-Edition with all DLCs for a third of the original main game price - because on the PC, the long tail is (and always was) a thing. Now, that console hardware does not age that quick anymore, this might already happen there - or maybe already happened (don't know, i don't own a console).

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You can get console games pretty cheap, too. In many big stores (in Germany Media Markt, Saturn, etc) there are "game pyramids", where games are sold for 25-50% (I recently got Pokemon Moon for my girlfriend for 10 €). In most cases it takes about a year until games land there (then at 75-50% of the original price). At the latest, as soon as a new generation of consoles gets reeleased, games for the old one also drop in price. However, getting the game you want for a good price is not as reliable as Steam sales are...

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Would be nice if we can publisch TDM on that store.

 

out of all these online digital stores my favourite platform is gog, that's where I would like to see TDM

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Not sure whether 19.99 EUR is a lot for you for such an old game, but for me paying over 4 times more in my local currency is ridiculous.

Wow, that's crazy. I mean 20€ for Oblivion is already quite high (next time, wait for a sale), but paying 4 times as much due to currency conversion, that's just crazy. I'd be interested to know in which country you live in to research this issue a little further. (Your profile just says Central Europe! ^^)

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What do people here think of Steam's 30% cut?

 

I guess there are multiple ways of looking at it. On one hand you could say that your average developer is better off using Steam because they handle all of that headache for them and offer many features. However I don't tend to think that "what the market will bear" and/or "well, at least it's better than <some other shitty alternative>" is a very good baseline because we should always be striving for the best (given what is presently reasonable/achievable). When I e.g. scrutizine the local telecom for gouging me on broadband costs, I don't tell myself "well, it's better than not having service at all so I'll just go on about my business". Rather it's "they have a local monopoly over what is now considered basic infrastructure and the same service could be offered at a much lower rate if we simply organized things more efficiently"

 

I guess the question for me is: if there were multiple competing game distribution platforms with comparable features and market dominance to Steam, would the developer fee be lower? Is Epic's 12% fee just a temporary thing to grab market share?

 

 

One of the unfortunate downsides to having multiple competitors is that these entities have no interest in platform portability. Purchased content, friends lists, profiles, workshop content, etc etc does not transfer and I suspect all of them will fight any standard of this sort. I can only imagine a decentralized system solving this kind of problem (or at least parts of it) but such solutions seem quite far off.

Edited by woah
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Wow, that's crazy. I mean 20€ for Oblivion is already quite high (next time, wait for a sale), but paying 4 times as much due to currency conversion, that's just crazy. I'd be interested to know in which country you live in to research this issue a little further. (Your profile just says Central Europe! ^^)

 

I live in Poland (unfortunately), and the exchange rate for EUR is around 4,5 now.

 

Rather it's "they have a local monopoly over what is now considered basic infrastructure and the same service could be offered at a much lower rate if we simply organized things more efficiently"

 

It's not even about the efficiency, Valve is probably efficient, they just might be lying about maintenance costs (Tim Sweeney mentioned that their markup on server costs is around 300-400%).

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there's also the official xbox club and official playstation club where you have to pay a monthly subscription, just to play some of the games you've bought, so on console you buy a game, then to do multiplay or co-op on that game you have to have access to the game servers which are behind a paywall, either run by microsoft or sony. Also on console both sony and microsoft pull access to some games by making the games only work for a limited time, or not working on the next gen version of their console. so for a console game you are paying in some cases double or triple what the game costs on a pc, and sometimes for a limited time.

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What do people here think of Steam's 30% cut?

 

I guess there are multiple ways of looking at it. On one hand you could say that your average developer is better off using Steam because they handle all of that headache for them and offer many features. However I don't tend to think that "what the market will bear" and/or "well, at least it's better than <some other shitty alternative>" is a very good baseline because we should always be striving for the best (given what is presently reasonable/achievable). When I e.g. scrutizine the local telecom for gouging me on broadband costs, I don't tell myself "well, it's better than not having service at all so I'll just go on about my business". Rather it's "they have a local monopoly over what is now considered basic infrastructure and the same service could be offered at a much lower rate if we simply organized things more efficiently"

 

Steam or any other store platform provide a service, and chance of distribution to publishers and developers. Publishers and developers think it's a good deal to pay 30%, to get their games spread to a bigger crowd. TBH, i donÄt get the talk about the share the store platforms get from the sales price. Noone is forced to offer on Steam, or any other platform. It's not "fair" to provide a platform with a lower share price. Publishers and developers will consider. TBH, i'd consider well before offering on a new platform, because it will be a matter of what benefits it offers. What benefits does a platform offer that nobody uses, for example? What benefits does GOG offer, when you consider that they only offer games without DRM, so, it'll be a economic consideration between people you may attract when you offer without DRM, and people who will distribute your DRM free game on file sharing sites. It's all an economic consideration. We don't have communism (yet). Thankfully.

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there's also the official xbox club and official playstation club where you have to pay a monthly subscription, just to play some of the games you've bought, so on console you buy a game, then to do multiplay or co-op on that game you have to have access to the game servers which are behind a paywall, either run by microsoft or sony.

 

I just found that out today... bought a Xbox One S recently, and, now i have to found out i even have to pay to play online. Additionally to much higher prices for the games in general. Man, the console kiddies surely get soaked. :laugh: Good thing i don't play online games... and good thing i still have a PC to play.

 

I love the Xbox BTW. Just saying. :)

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The situation might be worse on the PlayStation side. From what I recall, my friend had to get a PlayStation Plus membership to unlock certain content in Destiny. So you likely need this membership on top of the free online PS Network platform to convincingly play multiplayer games that you have bought. The store sales were lackluster, with only the most useless games getting significant discounts, but probably still too expensive compared to Steam's sales. And there were a number of crappy services on there like PS Now, which offers laughable pricing options for merely renting each game (this is where the ghost of the dead OnLive resides).

 

Don't forget PlayStation Vue at $45/month or higher, and PlayStation Video (rentals, or $13 to buy a film in SD resolution). No wonder addon-loaded Kodi (formerly known as Xbox Media Center) is so popular.

 

I believe they designed it to squeeze as much as possible from normal players without driving them off, while also allowing them to collect wheelbarrows of cash from kids with rich parents and unlimited access to the credit card.

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