I think if a Dev decided to only release their game on GoG because they prefer GoGs business practices there wouldnāt be a lot of complaints about it.
That is extremely disingenuous. It wouldnāt be commercially viable to do that (as seen byā¦ you know, CDPR not even doing that). The way to make that commercially viable would be to get paid for an exclusivity deal by GOGā¦ at which point Iām pretty sure people would, in fact, complain.
would be to get paid for an exclusivity deal by GOGā¦ at which point Iām pretty sure people would, in fact, complain.
Yes, Iām sure they would. Note how in your scenario here people arenāt complaining about it but being on Steam, they are complaining about the exclusivity deal.
Man, itās really hard to say this without sounding condescending, so let me say I absolutely am not trying to be, but I donāt really understand what youāre trying to say here. I think something got cut in that sentence somewhere.
I am agreeing with you that if someone signed and exclusivity deal with GoG people would complain.
I am pointing out that in order to get people to complain (in this hypothetical scenario) about something only being available on GoG, we had to introduce an exclusivity deal.
So people arenāt complaining about it not being on Steam, they are complaining about exclusivity deals.
Yes? Because if the game isnāt exclusive then itās on Steam.
Thatās what a monopoly gets ya. Especially if you have policies in place preventing competing storefronts from competing on price.
Exclusivity deals arenāt a particularly bad thing. Nerddom in general also keeps complaining when other first parties donāt have enough exclusives, often at the same time they make the opposite argument when it comes to Steam, which is part of the weirdness.
Itās a weirdly circular argument that youāre okay with Epic exclusives as long as the devs arenāt profiting from it, even if the end result is the same for you. And itās definitely not what people here are arguing. Thatās a very forced, disingenuous stance.
So a Monopoly (you can only purchase from one service) is bad, but exclusivity deals (you can only purchase from one service) arenāt bad. But Iām the one with the circular logic.
general also keeps complaining when other first parties donāt have enough exclusives,
theyāre idiots.
A stance someone else may or may not have is irrelevant to this discussion or the arguments I am making.
consoles are diffrent from store fronts. No one is complaining that a PC game store doesnāt have enough exclusives.
Itās a weirdly circular argument that youāre okay with Epic exclusives as long as the devs arenāt profiting from it, even if the end result is the same for you.
The end result is not the same. Thatās like saying āitās weird that youāre not okay with slave labour to work on farms, when the end result is the same to you.ā How it gets there is relevant, as well as the long term effects of supporting it. Epic has made it clear by their actions that they do not care about the end user, and if they end up āwinningā against Steam they would actively make things worse.
Yeah, that only works if you wildly misrepresent a monopoly. Itās not about āyou can only purchase from one serviceā, itās one service having a dominant position in the market. Not the same thing.
Exclusives are a competitive proposition. Thatās why Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have first party studios. Becauseā¦ you know, they want exclusive games to their platforms. And Netflix, and every other TV station that has ever existed.
Itās not as convernient, necessarily, but it does preserve competition in a way that having a single entity deciding the prices of all games does not.
Those are the long term effects of supporting them. Thereās no āwinningā here. Itās not a zero sum game. The idea is that multiple (two is also bad) players are in the market, all competing to give you a better deal and attract you to their option. Steam gives you a better deal because the competitors exist. If they are the only game in town they donāt have a reason to give you a better deal.
And even if you assumed Gaben is a saint (he isnāt, heād just rather squeeze the devs than the users, which makes him smart, not nice), heās not going to be around forever and you donāt want a world where Steam is the next Microsoft. Does that register to you at all?
itās one service having a dominant position in the market. Not the same thing.
Youāre the one wildly misrepresenting what a monopoly is:
1 exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 exclusive possession or control
3
a commodity controlled by one party
By definition Steam is not a monopoly because it does have exclusive control.
Notice how the word āexclusiveā keeps showing up in the definition. An āexclusivity dealā is literally a monopoly on that specific product. Seeing as we agree that monopolies are bad why are you supporting Epics monopoly on all sales of [game]?
Thatās why Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have first party studios
I have no issue with Epic having the games they created exclusive to their platform. Fortnight doesnāt have to be on Steam. The developer can decide āI only want to sell in this/these storesā and I have no problem with that. My issue is with things like what happened with darq where Epic waited until the game was finished and announced on Steam, then approached them for an exclusivity deal. When the dev wanted to maintain their promise to fans and backers to have the game available on Steam suddenly EGS went from āwould love to have your gameā to āno interestā.
The dev would have been fully willing to release on both, and if EGS cared about their users they could have easily had the game as well, (more games available to users of your service is a good thing). But Epic did not care about having more options available to their users, or having actual competition in the market place, they were only interested if they had a monopoly on all sales of the game and if customers did not have a choice and had to purchase from EGS if they wanted the game.
The idea is that multiple (two is also bad) players are in the market, all competing to give you a better deal and attract you to their option. Steam gives you a better deal because the competitors exist. If they are the only game in town they donāt have a reason to give you a better deal.
I agree. EGS makes itself āthe only game in townā for every title they purchase an exclusivity deal with, and that is why I refuse to use it.
And even if you assumed Gaben is a saint (he isnāt, heād just rather squeeze the devs than the users, which makes him smart, not nice), heās not going to be around forever and you donāt want a world where Steam is the next Microsoft. Does that register to you at all?
Of course, but Iām not going to use a service that is shit now over one that might be shit later. If Steam becomes shitty I will stop using it, I can always pirate my collection if I need to. I fully agree with you that competition is important, which is why I refuse to support Epicās anti-competitive and anti-consumer behaviour.
I think if a Dev decided to only release their game on GoG because they prefer GoGs business practices there wouldnāt be a lot of complaints about it.
That is extremely disingenuous. It wouldnāt be commercially viable to do that (as seen byā¦ you know, CDPR not even doing that). The way to make that commercially viable would be to get paid for an exclusivity deal by GOGā¦ at which point Iām pretty sure people would, in fact, complain.
Yes, Iām sure they would. Note how in your scenario here people arenāt complaining about it but being on Steam, they are complaining about the exclusivity deal.
Man, itās really hard to say this without sounding condescending, so let me say I absolutely am not trying to be, but I donāt really understand what youāre trying to say here. I think something got cut in that sentence somewhere.
I am agreeing with you that if someone signed and exclusivity deal with GoG people would complain.
I am pointing out that in order to get people to complain (in this hypothetical scenario) about something only being available on GoG, we had to introduce an exclusivity deal.
So people arenāt complaining about it not being on Steam, they are complaining about exclusivity deals.
Yes? Because if the game isnāt exclusive then itās on Steam.
Thatās what a monopoly gets ya. Especially if you have policies in place preventing competing storefronts from competing on price.
Exclusivity deals arenāt a particularly bad thing. Nerddom in general also keeps complaining when other first parties donāt have enough exclusives, often at the same time they make the opposite argument when it comes to Steam, which is part of the weirdness.
Itās a weirdly circular argument that youāre okay with Epic exclusives as long as the devs arenāt profiting from it, even if the end result is the same for you. And itās definitely not what people here are arguing. Thatās a very forced, disingenuous stance.
So a Monopoly (you can only purchase from one service) is bad, but exclusivity deals (you can only purchase from one service) arenāt bad. But Iām the one with the circular logic.
theyāre idiots.
A stance someone else may or may not have is irrelevant to this discussion or the arguments I am making.
consoles are diffrent from store fronts. No one is complaining that a PC game store doesnāt have enough exclusives.
The end result is not the same. Thatās like saying āitās weird that youāre not okay with slave labour to work on farms, when the end result is the same to you.ā How it gets there is relevant, as well as the long term effects of supporting it. Epic has made it clear by their actions that they do not care about the end user, and if they end up āwinningā against Steam they would actively make things worse.
Yeah, that only works if you wildly misrepresent a monopoly. Itās not about āyou can only purchase from one serviceā, itās one service having a dominant position in the market. Not the same thing.
Exclusives are a competitive proposition. Thatās why Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have first party studios. Becauseā¦ you know, they want exclusive games to their platforms. And Netflix, and every other TV station that has ever existed.
Itās not as convernient, necessarily, but it does preserve competition in a way that having a single entity deciding the prices of all games does not.
Those are the long term effects of supporting them. Thereās no āwinningā here. Itās not a zero sum game. The idea is that multiple (two is also bad) players are in the market, all competing to give you a better deal and attract you to their option. Steam gives you a better deal because the competitors exist. If they are the only game in town they donāt have a reason to give you a better deal.
And even if you assumed Gaben is a saint (he isnāt, heād just rather squeeze the devs than the users, which makes him smart, not nice), heās not going to be around forever and you donāt want a world where Steam is the next Microsoft. Does that register to you at all?
Youāre the one wildly misrepresenting what a monopoly is:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly
By definition Steam is not a monopoly because it does have exclusive control.
Notice how the word āexclusiveā keeps showing up in the definition. An āexclusivity dealā is literally a monopoly on that specific product. Seeing as we agree that monopolies are bad why are you supporting Epics monopoly on all sales of [game]?
I have no issue with Epic having the games they created exclusive to their platform. Fortnight doesnāt have to be on Steam. The developer can decide āI only want to sell in this/these storesā and I have no problem with that. My issue is with things like what happened with darq where Epic waited until the game was finished and announced on Steam, then approached them for an exclusivity deal. When the dev wanted to maintain their promise to fans and backers to have the game available on Steam suddenly EGS went from āwould love to have your gameā to āno interestā.
The dev would have been fully willing to release on both, and if EGS cared about their users they could have easily had the game as well, (more games available to users of your service is a good thing). But Epic did not care about having more options available to their users, or having actual competition in the market place, they were only interested if they had a monopoly on all sales of the game and if customers did not have a choice and had to purchase from EGS if they wanted the game.
I agree. EGS makes itself āthe only game in townā for every title they purchase an exclusivity deal with, and that is why I refuse to use it.
Of course, but Iām not going to use a service that is shit now over one that might be shit later. If Steam becomes shitty I will stop using it, I can always pirate my collection if I need to. I fully agree with you that competition is important, which is why I refuse to support Epicās anti-competitive and anti-consumer behaviour.