[ripdog]

Valve made L4D2. Or at least did a significant portion of the work. The problem with Epic is that they are either paying publishers for timed exclusives, or purchasing publishers outright in order to create artificial monopolies, and restricting consumer choice.

[onien11235]

Turtle Rock made L4D. Valve bought Turtle Rock.

If paying for exclusives is bad what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?

[Insanity]

But you are talking about different games. TR made L4D and Valve bought them. but Valve made L4D2.

And they released L4D2 a year after L4D sparking a lot of community uproar, starting things like the L4D2Boycot groups.

Man, just talking about the game makes me want to play it again. That was such an addiction for me xD

[onien11235]

What Valve did on L4D2 isn't relevant. My point was that Valve did the same thing with L4D as Epic is doing with Rocket League. Talking about L4D2 does not show that this point was wrong.

[Insanity]

I was just pointing out that you 2 (parent posters) were not talking about the same game. I'm not denying your point or anything lol

[benj111]

Making a good store that people want to visit?

Edit: I was being serious.

"what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?"

What's preferable for the consumer? buying a monopoly, or competing on quality, price, customer service, etc, etc, etc.

[onien11235]

> competing on quality, price, customer service, etc, etc, etc.

What metric are you using to define quality and how would it make people use this store over Steam? How much cheaper would you need to sell games to get people to go to the Epic store? Would developers put there games on the Epic store if the price had to be so low that they made more per sale on Steam? Good customer service being a factor requires having customers to experience it. It helps long term but won't get your first wave of customers.

[benj111]

Quality in this case could be website design, the overall quality of games, or discoverability of good games.

Price in this case would be margin. If Steam takes 10%, Epic could take 5%. Games makers could pass the savings on, or increase their own margins.

Yes good customer service requires customers. What's your point? Your first customer experiences good customer service, mentions it to their friends, who then shop with you, who then mention it to their friends. It's called word of mouth. It's a powerful marketing tool.

[onien11235]

Website design won't drive customers to a new store instead of Steam. Epic is curating their store so that should already cover quality and discoverability. Apparently they think that isn't enough.

> Price in this case would be margin. If Steam takes 10%, Epic could take 5%. Games makers could pass the savings on, or increase their own margins.

Steam takes 30% and Epic takes 12%. Very few games have chosen to reduce their price to go with the increased percentage.

For a web based store customer service only matters when things go wrong. Most customers should get a fairly standard experience of paying money and receiving their product. Do you consider Steam's customer service bad? Would a marginal improvement in customer service convince you to deal with the hassle of installing another launcher, setting up a payment method on a new store, and splitting your game library?

[benj111]

The store is 4 months old.

All of these things don't happen instantly.

You asked for a viable strategy, this is it as evidenced by the fact they're already trying it. Is it guaranteed? No. But nothing in business, or life, is.

[noirbot]

This is really a big part of it for me. I have no problem using multiple launchers, but Epic has given me little reason to think that they'll secure my payment info or account details.

[sshagent]

How about releasing the games at a cheaper price, as Epic charge so much less? Cheaper prices for games, shows a real commitement to the End User.

[aepiepaey]

I've seen several comparisons showing that Epic's prices are not actually lower than Steam's (in general).

Can't find them right now, and don't have the time to do a thorough comparison, but looking at the first three games on the Epic Store front page that also have Steam pages with prices seems to confirm this. That's "Oxygen not Included", "Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2" and "Outward", all of which are priced the same on both stores (€22.99, €59.99 and €39.99, respectively).

[wolfgke]

> If paying for exclusives is bad what viable alternative strategy should Epic be using to get users to their store?

Offering the games DRM-free (the audience that GOG is aiming - though I am really concerned about what GOG is currently doing with GOG Galaxy and cloud synchronisation).

[onien11235]

I don't have time to look it up right now but I'm pretty sure GOG had layoffs a few months ago. DRM free doesn't seem to be a winning strategy.