Epic starts an online store

[teh_saccade]

If MS owned steam, I'd never pay for a game again.

I'd sell my steam account to someone else for a few thousand and upgrade my mainboard and CPU to new-gen and just do work and use those hours to indulge my other past-times.

The only reason I buy games on Steam is because I know the publishers and developers get around 70% of the sales price, plus a cut of trading, etc...
Otherwise I wouldn't support gaming with my wallet in any way.

I dislike very much the direction the industry has been heading in the past decade.

[Destined]

A friend just told me today that Subnautica is apparently free for a limited time on the Epic Store. Just in case anyone is interested in this game and does not mind supporting another gaming platform.

[teh_saccade]

There was a bunch of sites crop up last year or so that are like Netflix / Flixify for gaming - where you don't buy the games, you simply pay a subscription each month and can play any of the games in their catalogue.

Some of them had decent download methods, too - you could play the game before it was fully downloaded, as it would first download only the parts you needed to launch the game and get playing, while the rest downloaded as you were playing the game.

However, the catalogues were pretty sparse and not many newer games were available.

If they had newer titles and a bigger catalogue - I'd pay 30 a month to subscribe and download and play as many different, new or old games that I wanted. Cancel it when busy or away for a few months, come back and do it again.
Idk why no other platform offers that "play while it downloads" streaming, like with video - it worked well for those titles that were able to support it.

I'd sign up because they say they're going to give away a free game every 2 weeks. Then I'll add them as non-steam games. Their prices are a bit steep and none of their catalogue interests me - right before the holiday sale on Steam too.

The site's only thing is they have Hades as early access and put a price on Genesis Alpha pre-purchase, however both will be released in the Steam store when it's out of early access/pre-purchase.
Most of the "coming soon" games are heading for the bargain bin price section on Steam.

Perhaps I'll sign up for the free games every 2 weeks, but - I'll have to add those games as non-steam games and have yet another launcher installed that I don't want to fill up my spam-box and take up space on my HDD:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/462770/discussions/0/1745605598715512430/

Gonna be hard to dethrone Steam. Other than Blizzard for D2 (no launcher except game) they were the 1st people to make me install a games manager - which was awesome because no more icons all over the place and tidy desktop - for Dark Messiah and L4D maybe... 10-14 years ago?

Perhaps Epic are taking a lesser cut and have an early access exclusive - but they're giving away a game every 2 weeks and making me disorganise my computer - existing outside the games manager with which I am familiar and has many safeguards and a good refund and returns policy and allows a good overlay and connection to my friends and other players and blahblahblah and install (I have had many bad experiences with) software made in Hong Kong.

I'm never going to buy anything from them, because it exists outside my game manager software that I prefer and will be a minor irritation that I can do without - especially since none of the titles appeal (to me).
But, I will make an account in order to be offered a free game every 2 weeks, until they stop doing that because they can't afford to any longer and then I will delete my account and say "so long and thanks for all the fish".


I'm putting my money on the dog with 4 legs that isn't going to go in the deep frier and be served as chicken fried rice if it doesn't win the race.

But I'll take the free prawn crackers and sample sushi, if I fancy a snack.


That business model is flawed from the get-go.

[jaxa]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/12/discord-store-to-offers-developers-90-percent-of-game-revenues/

 

One upped

[demagogue]

Just popping in to say Subnautica is one of my favorite games from the last year. I'd definitely recommend it, even at full price, and can't fault them for picking that game to release for free as bait for their platform.

 

It looks great. Of all the "alien planet survival" games out there, most of which fall far short of the potential, this is the one that lives up to the hype. Exploration is great. Story is great. Pacing is great. Sandbox is great. You can just noodle around and build a cool undersea base if you like. Gameplay is pretty good for what it is if you dig swimming, submarining, and fighting off rabid sea creatures. It was buggy in the early days, and still has a few issues, but it's getting more stable every release, and it was still great fun even in the buggy days.

[Oktokolo]

I don't have a steam account and will probably not leave GOG for Epic Games. But i signed up to get Subnautica too.

It looks good, is a fresh take on the survival genre and the grind is more fun than in other survival games. Will need to find a way to increase draw distance and reduce pop-ins though...