The fury against Epic Games Store, explained

In December 2018, Epic Games, manufacturers of Fortnite and the Unreal game development engine, launched Epic Games Store. This announcement was followed by an avalanche of exclusive store ad ads, many of which bothered fans accustomed to playing new titles exclusively on the Valve's Steam platform, the main PC gaming market.

As a result of these exclusives, a new wave of indignation ensued. Some PC game fans regret having to navigate a new store and install new software if they want to play certain games. Some relatively clear grocery software and how the company uses its Fortnite A boon to lock exclusive games to other stores convinced themselves that Epic, its CEO, Tim Sweeney, and his Chinese investor, Tencent, were preparing something sinister.

Epic himself admits that the showcase was launched half-cooked. The team behind her said she stumbled on the portal by committing a number of non-forced mistakes. But this is not an active plot, as many claim. It is an act of capitalism, a tragedy in which Epic and his clients will both play a role.

Let's take a little time to review the allegations against Epic and focus on the ones that actually hold water.

Theory 1: Epic Games is funded by a Chinese company and can not be trusted.

In 2012, Chinese megacorp Tencent invested about $ 330 million in Epic Games, North Carolina. According to General Manager Tim Sweeney, this gave Tencent a 40% stake in his company and the right to elect several members to his board of directors. (Tencent also has significant investments in companies like Ubisoft and Riot Games.)

Many consumers are using this huge investment as a baton against Epic on social media. Undoubtedly emboldened by the ongoing trade disputes of the US government and vituperative anti-Chinese rhetoric, some argue that Epic does not control his own affairs.

Epic says it's not true.

Photo of Lintao Zhang / Getty Images

"I support the right of everyone to complain about the problems of the technological industry", Sweeney wrote on April 4 on Twitter. "The Epic store, with exclusive games and a set of Spartan features, is an ideal target for anger." But please help separate the facts and opinions from the lies on […] foreign control.

"I am the majority shareholder of Epic Games since 1991", Sweeney continued. "We have several outside investors now. Tencent is the biggest. All Epic investors are our friends and partners. Nobody can dictate his decisions to Epic.

These messages reflect what Steve Allison, director of the Epic Games Store, said on stage at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"Tencent has […] no entry into our business, "Allison told a room full of developers," They do not tell us what we're doing, they do not suggest what we should be doing, they're not making decisions for us. Not in our building, all we do is with our team and the last point of conversation, when he gets to the top is Tim, and Tim does not take words from Tencent, believe me.

Theory 2: Epic Games Store is spyware stealing personal data.

The Epic Games Store client is free to download. Once the amateur datameters got their hands on them, they noticed some peculiarities about its operation, including unusual network traffic and access to the user's files.

The situation is well documented at Ars Technica, which is tightening on a thread called Reddit "Epic Games Store, Spyware, Tracking and you!". Some point out that the store customer creates a file named "tracking.js". Epic's vice president of engineering, Daniel Vogel, simply used this data to track revenue-sharing generated by content and game creators, a feature built into the Unreal Engine suite for years. years.

However, the fact that the Epic Games Store client creates a local copy of the Steam files without first requesting the user's permission is more worrisome to some. Sweeney himself went into the red thread of Reddit to say that it was not correct, even though this data is shared with Epic only when users choose it.

"The current implementation is a vestige of our haste to implement social features in the early days of FortniteSays Sweeney on Reddit. "It was actually my fault for pushing the pitching team to support it very quickly, and then identifying the fact that we needed to change it. Since this problem is in the foreground, we will solve it. "

Photo of Leon Neal / Getty Images

Sweeney thanked the community for asking such questions about the software they use daily.

"This type of independent analysis of access to data software […] It's a healthy trend and I'd like to see it done more widely, "says Sweeney. "When analyzing the results, it is important to distinguish the normal from the abnormal. […] and to separate technical analysis from incendiary rhetoric, such as the alienated claim that we are a Chinese spy band. "

Theory 3: Epic hurts consumers by paying exclusives for Epic Games Store.

Of all the accusations against Epic for his incursion in the sale of video games, this one is perhaps the most controversial. But it is also a long-standing precedent for the video game industry.

One of the biggest announcements made by Epic at the showcase launch was: Metro Exodus, the third title of the 4A Games series, would be available for sale exclusively on Epic Games Store. The news fell a few weeks before the launch of this title, and after many fans had already given Valve their money to pre-order the title on Steam. These pre-orders were honored, but the fans were upset.

Valve leaned back, calling Deep Silver's commercial decision "unfair" and accusing Epic of mistreating his clients. Later, once again on stage at the Game Developers Conference, Epic's Steve Allison admitted that his team made a mistake in this case.

Games 4A / Deep Silver

"We had talked to [Deep Silver] for a number of months and they made decisions on their end, "said Allison." We both knew that there was a potential for [fan anger] in terms of communication. It seemed even worse and much bigger than we thought, and in real time we spent time talking about it and we said we would never do it that way, and I think we're not in a situation where this could never happen [again]. "

But Epic is still extremely aggressive for exclusive titles. This means entering into agreements with developers and publishers to ensure that their titles reach Epic Games Store and nowhere else for PC, at least for a while. This includes obsidian observations The outer worlds and Borderlands 3 Gearbox Software, which are both timed exclusives for the Epic store.

This week, Sweeney said these types of transactions would continue.

"We have had a lot of discussions about this since GDC," Sweeney said on Twitter. "Epic is willing to continue signing financing / exclusivity agreements with interested developers and publishers, regardless of their plans or previous Steam announcements."

If you're a developer or publisher, it's easy to see the value of selling your games on the Epic showcase instead of Steam. Valve takes 30% of its revenue down, while Epic only takes 12%. In fact, if you use the Unreal engine to make your game more affordable, the five percent license fee for this software is removed, which is essentially Epic's 12 percent share.

Simple math encourages developers to entice more buyers to buy products through Epic Games Store. For a developer who uses Unreal Engine and sells on Epic Games Store, this represents a revenue loss of 12%, more than double that of a sale on Steam. Even before any other money or incentive is offered, it's a good deal, a deal that would have already yielded huge profits for Deep Silver and 4A Games. First sales of Metro Exodus on PC were two and a half times those of the previous title of the Metro series, which was sold on Steam. And Deep Silver and 4A left with a bigger share of the profits.

Gearbox Software / 2K Games

Exclusive deals like these have been part of the video game industry since the very beginning. There are still games available on PlayStation 4 and not on Xbox One, and vice versa. The fact that this type of arrangement is now commonplace on PC testifies to increased competition, and in capitalism, competition is supposed to be beneficial to consumers in the long run.

In the short term, regardless of the revenue generated by developers, many customers see it as a disadvantage – console-type competition on a console based on the player who has the largest war chest instead of the best product.

Theory 4: Epic Games Store offers fewer features than Steam and other platforms.

This is not a theory. It's a fact. Epic Games Store is a work in progress, something that Epic itself readily admits. Here is a short list of things that he can not do for Steam to:

• Record the progress of the game remotely, and automatically, in the cloud.
• Store multiple user profiles that can be mapped to different games.
• Allow users to review the games and share those reviews on the platform.
• Allow users to participate in dedicated forums.
• Share their accounts and the games they own with several family members.
• Play their games on other devices.

Many of these features are under development and Epic is open on its roadmap. You can even track their progress on a publicly accessible website. But consumers are not interested in waiting.

The fact is that even though Epic offers better conditions for developers and game publishers, they offer nothing equivalent to consumers. Games cost as much on Epic Games Store as they would otherwise on Steam. There just are not as many quality of life features, bells and whistles available when you buy a game on Epic Games Store, and the games are not cheaper.

So, at least here, it's easy to understand why some people get upset: why should consumers be forced to buy a game on the Epic platform? Why should they be handcuffed by behind-the-scenes transactions to obtain exclusivity? Why should we deny them access to a game on a more robust platform such as Steam?

Why? Because Epic and its trading partners say it well.

It is this unspoken message on which Epic Games will have to focus all its energy in the weeks and months to come. To compensate for the exclusion of Steam games, Epic must offer an optimal or superior user experience. Because there is another half of the market forces that allow capitalism. This is what is called consumer choice.

Consumers can vote with their wallet. If they feel the desire enough, it may mean not paying Epic. And that may mean not playing the games they were looking forward to playing.