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ERG89

ERG89 wrote: »

Not many will chance it despite the overabundance of open world games out there being made but I think there is a real gap in the market for a GTA style open world game the last few years. There hasn't been a new GTA this entire console lifecycle and yet nobody tried filling the blank left by Saints Row which sold pretty well when it was around. You had Watch Dogs and Mafia 3 but neither is really like GTA or Saints Row in terms of their approach.

Saints Row is more zany but love that about it. Surprised we haven't seen one in ages.

Retr0gamer

That's mostly likely to do with the complete ****show THQ went through recently.

BloodBath

Shiminay wrote: »

I think you've hit the nail on the head here friend. 30% is a lot, but there's a lot on offer for it. We've often heard for years that Valve takes 30% too, so it seems to be something of an industry standard. This does read very much like a push to move into more mobile devices. They'll then farm that dataset and grow from there

Steam takes 30% up to 1 million, down to 25% over 10 million, down to 20% over 50 million. You can also generate free steam keys to sell on your own store or give away whatever you like with no cut and they take only 15% of in app/game purchases.

This drop was only made after Epic hit the publisher scene. I don't know why people complain about them. Epic are excellent for the industry. 1 of the best companies out there that are far more pro consumer/developer than anyone else.

Apple are and always were greedy bastards.

gizmo

quokula wrote: »

Apple charge you 30% but for that you get them hosting all of your download data, you get a store listing, you're searchable in their rankings, they handle all the payment processing, currency conversion and the international taxation details for you, they review and do basic quality assurance on your app, and the tooling to build your app is of a very high standard and supplied for free (if you already own a mac)

Shiminay wrote: »

I think you've hit the nail on the head here friend. 30% is a lot, but there's a lot on offer for it. We've often heard for years that Valve takes 30% too, so it seems to be something of an industry standard. This does read very much like a push to move into more mobile devices. They'll then farm that dataset and grow from there

Counter argument...

The first features offered are indeed useful however Apple have now taken them from feature to requirement as part of their rejection of the various third-party game streaming services currently, or soon to be, on offer.

If you want a third party to handle your payment processing, currency conversion and international taxation details for you, tough use any other systems other than the one provided by them and your App will be rejected.

The QA offered by them is also rudimentary and is more akin to the platform certification process carried out by the console makers. I'm aware you said basic but it needs to be pointed out that this is in no way a replacement for proper QA for a release and is primarily for Apple's benefit (and arguably by extension the consumers) not the developers.

The reason the 30% is seen as in industry standard is because Apple basically standardised it, or at the very least popularised it, first with the iTunes Store and then with the AppStore. They certainly can't use it as a defense after the fact.

On that note, there's an interesting article and linked report here which deals with the topic in the context of the current anti-trust hearing against Apple in both the US and EU. Both of which, I'd highly wager are why Epic are making the move they are now.

Azza

BloodBath wrote: »

This drop was only made after Epic hit the publisher scene. I don't know why people complain about them. Epic are excellent for the industry. 1 of the best companies out there that are far more pro consumer/developer than anyone else.

Apple are and always were greedy bastards.

How are Epic pro consumer?. They are stopping or at the very least delaying people from purchasing games from their preferred digital store front. A storefront that has more features. Steam is still subjectively better at this point.

If they where really pro consumer instead of spending millions on procuring exclusive games, they could of spent them money on something like a loyalty scheme. Buy a certain amount of games or spend a certain amount on the Epic store and Epic will give you a €20-30 voucher for your next purchase. Epic could underwrite that voucher and pay the cost of the voucher to the developer. Pump money into their store and make it as user friendly and feature rich as possible. Beat Valve in a fair fight on features and price.

Epics free games promotion is excellent and they should be commended for that but they can take a hike with exclusives. If they combined the free games promotion with what I'm suggesting above no one would be complaining.

Valve are almost certainly taking too much of the pie from the developers. But in fairness to Valve they stuck with the PC platform when Epic all but abandoned it. Remember when Epic where asked why Gears of War wasn't coming to PC, they basically said it the PC platform was in disarray and there was too much piracy. That never put Valve off and they always stuck to their principal that they if they offered a good enough service, that was good value for money, easy to use and convenient then people would buy games over pirating them and in the long run they where right. They stuck in there and became the dominate digital storefront as a result.

At the end of the day Epic want a larger percentage of the digital storefront market to make more money. Nothing wrong with that of course. Its just their taking a shortcut to get there at the expense of the consumer.

Varik

Apple charge 30% for people to gain access to the countless millions of user that have bought an apple product because it's an apple product, they buy $700 computer case wheels because it's apple. If Epic want in then they play by apples rules.

Or they go android where they can have their own store, but then that wasn't even good enough they wanted access to Google's play store users so caved but not before compromising their users.

BloodBath

Azza wrote: »

How are Epic pro consumer?. They are stopping or at the very least delaying people from purchasing games from their preferred digital store front. A storefront that has more features. Steam is still subjectively better at this point.

If they where really pro consumer instead of spending millions on procuring exclusive games, they could of spent them money on something like a loyalty scheme. Buy a certain amount of games or spend a certain amount on the Epic store and Epic will give you a €20-30 voucher for your next purchase. Epic could underwrite that voucher and pay the cost of the voucher to the developer. Pump money into their store and make it as user friendly and feature rich as possible. Beat Valve in a fair fight on features and price.

Epics free games promotion is excellent and they should be commended for that but they can take a hike with exclusives. If they combined the free games promotion with what I'm suggesting above no one would be complaining.

Valve are almost certainly taking too much of the pie from the developers. But in fairness to Valve they stuck with the PC platform when Epic all but abandoned it. Remember when Epic where asked why Gears of War wasn't coming to PC, they basically said it the PC platform was in disarray and there was too much piracy. That never put Valve off and they always stuck to their principal that they if they offered a good enough service, that was good value for money, easy to use and convenient then people would buy games over pirating them and in the long run they where right. They stuck in there and became the dominate digital storefront as a result.

At the end of the day Epic want a larger percentage of the digital storefront market to make more money. Nothing wrong with that of course. Its just their taking a shortcut to get there at the expense of the consumer.

Valve had a big headstart so yes their service is still better. They are still a monopoly though. Epic did what they thought they had to do to get people using their service and it has worked.

I don't like exclusives either but it's part of the industry. Having to use a different store is not a huge inconvenience so it's nowhere near as bad as platform exclusives.

I have close to 100 games on the epic games store already and most of them were free. That's pretty pro consumer.

Azza

BloodBath wrote: »

Valve had a big headstart so yes their service is still better. They are still a monopoly though. Epic did what they thought they had to do to get people using their service and it has worked.

I don't like exclusives either but it's part of the industry. Having to use a different store is not a huge inconvenience so it's nowhere near as bad as platform exclusives.

I have close to 100 games on the epic games store already and most of them were free. That's pretty pro consumer.

Valve had a big head start because they stuck with the PC platform during a difficult period. They had the foresight to do so, Epic did not. Epic are simply using exclusives to negate the fact they are offering games on an inferior platform.

Steam/Valve are the dominate PC digital storefront but does not make them a monopoly. As far as I'm aware they are not actively restricting third party games from other vendors therefore they are not the sole provider of a particular commodity so its not a apt description.

Yes Epic did what they thought they had to do to get people to use their product and while it may have worked what they did was anti consumer. I believe my suggestion of a voucher scheme could of achieved the same goal and would of actually been pro consumer.

I already acknowledged Epics free game promotion is a good thing and I also have a raft of free games on the Epic store. But tell me of that close to 100 games you have on the Epic store how many will you ever actually play?

BloodBath

Not many but I don't play much of anything these days. Didn't even bother with the free borderlands 3 from the ryzen offer.

Most of them are not so great indie titles. A lot of good ones too though and some top AAA stuff. The new total war game was free for 24 hours at launch as well. It's not just old stuff.

It's still more than Steam offer.

On the developer side they have also given away millions in free top quality assets.

johnny_ultimate

Epic do offer vouchers regularly, btw. I have a tenner sitting in my account for the next game I buy, which I was given after buying a game I picked up on sale with a previous ten euro off voucher When Outer Wilds came out I got it for like a tenner because of some insane sale they had on at the time.

No doubt Epic have brute forced their way into the market, and I find their current app store stunt deeply cynical (and distasteful in the way they’re trying to mobilise Fortnite fans to do their bidding in the name of profit). But honestly think they’ve shaken up the PC market in a good way for me - some insane value to be had, even beyond the copious freebies. Most of Steam’s extra features are just that to me - nice extras - so doesn’t bother me to play in a different launcher. Only concern is longevity in the end - but I’m not sure I trust any current platform to guarantee me access to all my games well into the future.

Azza

BloodBath wrote: »

Not many but I don't play much of anything these days. Didn't even bother with the free borderlands 3 from the ryzen offer.

Most of them are not so great indie titles. A lot of good ones too though and some top AAA stuff. The new total war game was free for 24 hours at launch as well. It's not just old stuff.

It's still more than Steam offer.

On the developer side they have also given away millions in free top quality assets.

Yeah as I got older games have become more of a commitment. I also got Borderlands 3 free on Epic from a Ryzen offer and I haven't played it either :pac:

I also picked up the new Total War, but I'm not sure if I'll ever play it.

I'm happy to acknowledge they are they are pro developer, but that doesn't mean they are pro consumer as well.

Azza

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Epic do offer vouchers regularly, btw. I have a tenner sitting in my account for the next game I buy, which I was given after buying a game I picked up on sale with a previous ten euro off voucher When Outer Wilds came out I got it for like a tenner because of some insane sale they had on at the time.

No doubt Epic have brute forced their way into the market, and I find their current app store stunt deeply cynical (and distasteful in the way they’re trying to mobilise Fortnite fans to do their bidding in the name of profit). But honestly think they’ve shaken up the PC market in a good way for me - some insane value to be had, even beyond the copious freebies. Most of Steam’s extra features are just that to me - nice extras - so doesn’t bother me to play in a different launcher. Only concern is longevity in the end - but I’m not sure I trust any current platform to guarantee me access to all my games well into the future.

I wasn't aware that Epic store offered loyalty rewards and I do generally keep up with gaming news. Perhaps Epic should have doubled down on that and advertised rather than opt for exclusives.

BlitzKrieg

Cordell wrote: »

No, I'd say if Epic wins it's a small win for us, consumers. The absolute monopoly Apple and others have over the app distribution and in app purchases is anything but in our interest. I would rather see an Epic store (and Steam and whatever else) store apps on all relevant platforms, including PS and XB.

I'd like to see that too. I do think this generation has been one where the tech in the consoles has mostly been irrelevent and microsoft and sony have mostly been fighting on their software and services, so I would like to see them open the consoles to other store fronts or even abandoning the exclusive hardware bit altogether, but thats a pipedream thats not budging for at least one more generation if not longer.

And Epic has been ever so gentle to avoid dragging the xbox or playstation brands into this argument even though they do follow the exact same policies as Apple in terms of taking their cuts of all products sold in their markets. With Microsoft taking the identical 70/30

https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-share/

It excludes all games and Xbox purchases of any sort. Games stay at the same 70/30 split as before.

And obviously locking out any other markets because they are games consoles.

There is a strong cynical streak with Epic's campaign being directed at Apple and not all the closed markets. Because Epic know they can easily get a lot of people to rally against Apple and Apple will eventually cut them a deal

But they wouldnt see the same support if they directed it at Sony or Microsoft, they'd see something pretty similar to their fight with Steam where a lot of those gamers TM would turn on Epic instead.

Apple is an easier target

Varik

I doubt Epic is going to get anywhere with apple or google legally, and it's all an attempt to use public opinion to force a change and considering how Google at least were happy enough to just ignore Epic at first I don't think that's get too far.

Epic's accusations of an monopoly are for too narrow a market, they may as well say Apple have a monopoly of what's sold in physical Apple stores. Microsoft held at the time of their monopoly investigations 90% of the total person computer market, here both Apple and google are far short of that and counter to any IOS or Android fanboys they're the same thing.

Retr0gamer

There was an article with the creators of the delisted Scottt Pilgrim game recently. Apparently since then they have been contacted by Ubisoft so maybe the game might come out of delisted hell.

Retr0gamer

Summer Games Done Quick started last night.

Kiith

Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting fantastic reviews. A technical marvel from what most people are saying.

The Raging Bile Duct

Kiith wrote: »

Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting fantastic reviews. A technical marvel from what most people are saying.

Bloody hell, just looked up the size of it. 150GB!

Dyr

The Raging Bile Duct wrote: »

Bloody hell, just looked up the size of it. 127GB!

Just look at the scenery though...

pixelburp

Wow, flight simulators have come a long long way. How detailed is the ground? I see from that videos there's satellite photos of Ireland but are the buildings recreated and to what detail? (Presume major cities moreso than other urban areas)

johnny_ultimate

Been super excited about giving it a go after seeing a few videos about it in recent weeks. Hoping it runs reasonably well on my rig. Thankfully the sim aspects can be dialled down for those of us who want to see the pretty clouds without being bogged down by a robust recreation of taxiing . But seems like a damn good offering for a range of different experience levels.

Varik

Not sure if it's online only or if there's a basic world map in that 150GB for Flight sim but the real high quality world is streamed from the cloud.

Saw a guy playing it online and he mentioned the game was using 3MB/s at the time, I couldn't see any drastic pop in so maybe that's near the top end or maybe it's limited by his connection.

johnny_ultimate

Also worth noting that it's available on Game Pass on PC, which remains a pretty ****ing fantastic deal even if the launcher is IMO a bit janky. But some great games popping up recently, and certainly can't complain about the 70 quid flight simulator being part of the deal

Retr0gamer

pixelburp wrote: »

Wow, flight simulators have come a long long way. How detailed is the ground? I see from that videos there's satellite photos of Ireland but are the buildings recreated and to what detail? (Presume major cities moreso than other urban areas)

A lot of details are being filled in with generic brushes, so there's a large set of trees and houses placed where they should be from the satellite data. Monuments and other distinctive features have been handcrafted. Of course not everything will be there, it is the entire world that is available!

Varik wrote: »

Not sure if it's online only or if there's a basic world map in that 150GB for Flight sim but the real high quality world is streamed from the cloud.

Saw a guy playing it online and he mentioned the game was using 3MB/s at the time, I couldn't see any drastic pop in so maybe that's near the top end or maybe it's limited by his connection.

Digital Foundry said the streaming process is excellent with no hitches. The data usage didn't seem to be too insane either. It's only high quality assets being streamed in.

dreamers75

Mods will be paid for, i for one cant wait to do a gun run in an A10 on Ballyfermot.

Retr0gamer

dreamers75 wrote: »

Mods will be paid for, i for one cant wait to do a gun run in an A10 on Ballyfermot.

Nothing of value will be lost that day.

one armed dwarf

Yeah I might try to put up with GP to see how it is, but last time I tried to use it it failed to delete Gears 5 properly and locked away 100gigs of storage on my SSD with its stupid protected directories. Absolute worthless launcher

gizmo

pixelburp wrote: »

Wow, flight simulators have come a long long way. How detailed is the ground? I see from that videos there's satellite photos of Ireland but are the buildings recreated and to what detail? (Presume major cities moreso than other urban areas)

Funny that you mention that, MS released a video charting the evolution of the series since the 80s and it's quite something.

Retr0gamer

Man. And I thought the last guardian had awful framerates and frame pacing issues.

Dyr

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nothing of value will be lost that day.

Ballyers go "Werrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Warthog goes "BRRRRRRRRRRRR"