Why all the hate for Epic Store

[Blade12775]

I don't get it. Why all the hate for Epic Store? Nothing said about Origins, Gog, Ubisoft, or any others. So what? Epic has exclusive for however long. It's not like it doesn't happen anywhere else. So you can't buy the game through Steam. You can still add it as a Non-Steam game. You want achievements? It's in the game.

Having multiple companies like Epic and Steam is good for us and game companies. Prices lowered on some games, free games, better sales, etc. Keeps both from charging an arm and a leg. Also, Epic charges less for the game companies which also mean better games in the end (hopefully).

But in the end, I still don't get all the hate on Epic Store. It's more hate than the devil child EA gets.

[Blitz4]

Escrito originalmente por grovercleavland0:

Escrito originalmente por Ⓜ Ⓐ Ⓢ Ⓠ Ⓤ Ⓔ:

So no answer then to: so what are they looking for on your PC?

Political opinions? Nudie pics? Pirated games? Bank account info?

Has anyone on earth proven they've looked for and found anything on their PC?

The only thing proven was from nearly 3 years ago when it was found the Epic Launcher was copying a single file from Steam, the file that contained the friends list, and made a copy of it and placed that copy into another folder without ever uploading data from that file. It was found that data was only uploaded from that file to Epic when the user decided to do the friends list importing function on Epic Launcher, and it was found that only a hash of the friends list was being uploaded at that time. Since that day it was found it has changed though and it no longer copies that file before hand, it was changed to only touch that one file after the user decided to do the friends list.

There has been no proof of Epic uploading data to themselves that they should not be doing. It really looks like the kind of data that is being uploaded to Epic is the same kind of data that is uploaded to Steam when using Steam, and both stores do it for the same purposes.

I think Redshell woke publishers up. Here's a recap:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/8pud8b/psa_red_shell_spyware_holy_potatoes_were_in_space/

Publishers wanted the cheap & easy route and got caught. (I'm trying to find correlation between those involved in Redshell and those de-prioritizing Steam, nothing conclusive yet.)

Take 2K for example, or almost any big publisher. They combine their Website TOS/Privacy Policy with their video game TOS/Privacy Policy. That makes it confusing as some things that are acceptable on a website are not acceptable in a video game or on a private PC. That privacy policy allowed them to use Redshell. Now they did remove redshell from their games, however the privacy policy that allowed it is still there, unaltered. Which means publishers can create their own version of Redshell and none would be the wiser.

I'm just reading what's "allowed & possible" in the privacy policies and any studio owned by a public company or any that employed "unethical business practices" in the past is not to be trusted unless they alter their policies to disallow it.

[Blitz4]

Escrito originalmente por MancSoulja:

Escrito originalmente por Christmas Fumo Present Unboxing:

they have never been pro consumer only pro publisher. It is a safety net for publishers with bad games that don't or won't make as much money standalone so epic pays them to stay on their storefront backing the games they'll eventually give away for free.

Why would any business be pro consumer? Do you think GoG for example cares about you or do you think the whole DRM stance is just a USP for them to stand out from the crowd and make more money?

Um. Let's take a worst case. A public company. If Valve or Epic were publicly traded, they couldn't be digital game distributors. However Epic with their limited liability and silencing customers approach is setting them up to go public. If they go public, then all members on the board of a public company have a responsibility to their shareholders (owners) to maximize profits.

Here's a short list of the public publishers & distributors:

• Sony
  
• Microsoft
  
• Nintendo
  
• CDPR
  
• EA
  
• Ubisoft
  
• Bethesda (owned by Microsoft)
  
• 2K
  
• Rockstar (owned by 2K)

Investors want Epic to go public. Epic seems on the fence about it. Even we know they're making stupid investments, that would never happen if they were public. However investing in their platform, that could be justified as a necessity if going public. Yet that doesn't mean they won't copy all of those other public companies above. The entire move towards Discord and away from Web forums just seems interesting to me.

I faintly remember Steam saying that they couldn't have made this platform if they were public, nor could they have justified investing in Linux, which is amazing what they did because of it. So, Gabe once said all Valve games run faster on Linux. No big deal, until the Steam Deck comes out which runs Linux. 80% of Windows games are playable under Linux. This also puts Steam in a position to completely switch to Linux if Microsoft ever decided to be evil. Sadly Linux still isn't ready for the average PC user, but in a locked down software & hardware environment like Android, iOS, OSX and Steam Deck, it's fine.

EDIT: So conclusion. If you're public, it's very difficult to be pro consumer as your shareholders come first. Also, what if Valve did go public. Imagine the outrage of the numerous games invested in the platform.

[Blitz4]

Escrito originalmente por grovercleavland0:

The first 2 you were in the forums with in a matter of seconds.

Darkest Dungeon you are being hyperbolic with all those seconds you are using (using times that are unnecessary to even put in you were clearly just padding it, I could also add a bunch of seconds to finding a game on Steam and all those load times, but that's pointless), but they use Discord, remember I stated the developers indicated to Epic they want the players to go where they feel they have the best way to deal with feedback and I specifically listed multiple things and not just forums, for Darkest Dungeon that is discord. I can find that discord button on the store page just as fast as I can find the forum button on Steam.

You can easily use a search function on Discord, I do all the time and found many answers to questions I might have.

Its is very telling that the developers of Hades, when they brought early access to Steam, that they were telling Steam users to head over to Discord to provide feedback, really shows how much Discord is better for the developers to handle that feedback vs a store forum. I have also noticed that Paradox spends a lot of effort trying to get people to use their forums instead of Steam forums, it's clear paradox feels their own forums are far better than Steam's forums, but Steam forums are forced upon them and it makes thing more inefficient.

Really does look like store forums are a hindrance for developers, and it's forced upon them on Steam which means the users will automatically use the hindrance instead of the place the developers want them to go to.

I agree that this is one of those things that look like it is good for the customers, but in the long run it's terrible and acts as a hindrance that customers don't even realize is happening.

I know in my experience steam forums pale by comparison to the amount of interactivity and support I have received when using developers Discord channel or their own forums.

Note that I also didn't mention how long it took to register for each forum. Me, it's easy with a password manager. But imagine someone on mobile or not a geek. How many publishers are there on Steam & Epic? Am I supposed to create an account for each one? I can't tell you how frustrating it is to not have devs invested in Steam Forums, worst for me was and still is

Horizon Zero Dawn. I even tweeted the community manager to pin something in Steam as the first 2 months of that game is one of the worst launches in gaming history, due to technical issues and some simple pinned words or a FAQ would've fixed it. They only used reddit & twitter to communicate, no discord, no forums. It was so frustrating as the real testers (that's what every person who bought that game in the first 2 months were), they knew fixes to everyone's issues. 100% of threads created there on steam during the first month was all complaining about bugs & issues. And that was Sony's first entry into PC gaming, we wanted to help, but the silence causes us to peel away the mystic veil that companies have, ie: evangalists.

A year later, in those forums now, and you hear from the evangelists, even though many of the major major issues still remain. Some lie that the issues are fixed, but they aren't, it takes verbally twisting arms to get answers or testing the game again.

Discord is one thing, but only using reddit and twitter? twitter!? Get real. remove the veil right, I'll spell out what I found. Sony hired a studio to make HZD PC, who hired another company which had no PC experience, so they haired another company which is hard to find info about but didn't have much PC experience and for sure not DX12 experience or porting PS4 games to PC experience. Even today with the best money can buy, you can't always hit 60fps in that game at all times, mouse sensitivity is tied to framerate, controller sensitivity is impacted if going under 30fps, animations were only done in 30fps on the PS4, it was a technical bomb. I'm sure it's fine now as the average person probably won't notice with proper animation blending, etc.

I'm cool with Discord. Per Discord, I can even have two browser tabs one for my work profile and another for gaming profile. Overall, I've gotten more positive responses from Discord than steam forums. I remember asking for help to make a game harder (kingdom come deliverance) and I posted my rules for the playthrough and Discord said "that sounds great, i like the ... idea" and steam forums said "great lets just ruin the game ... blah blah blah" -- in that respect, yes steam forums are more toxic and less helpful to create fans.

[grovercleavland0]

Escrito originalmente por Christmas Fumo Present Unboxing:

The thing with epic is THEY WANT STEAM DATA.

Any Steam data they can get is public information and not grabbed from players computers at all.

So much so they argued with apple over it in their lawsuit or counter lawsuit for breaking apple ToS lmao.

Epic didn't go for Steam data at all in the lawsuit, that was Apple that subpoenaed Steam's data.

https://9to5mac.com/2021/02/19/apple-epic-steam/

but yeah real or not there are other reasons to hate them. Hell the whole apple court thing is proof they're scummy of the scum. I don't like apple and think they can die in a hole but rules are rules. They (epic) broke ToS (apple) and they had the gull the balls the audacity to sue them and try to screw other people over.

That's very very shady ♥♥♥♥ to do and very non trustworthy behavior. If they do that thinking they're in the right imagine what other ♥♥♥♥ they'll do and claim to have the moral high ground.

Not going to get into specifics about Apple's case, would take the thread into off topic. But this is one thing that I actually agree with on Epic, I feel what they are fighting for is a good thing for both consumers and for other developers, I don't even care that Epic was doing it for their own self serving purposes, they were still in the right to take on this fight.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por Sir Seanicus, Esq.:

Political.

It involves people. You do know what the term "politics" in greek that it stems from, is?

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Escrito originalmente por crunchyfrog:

Escrito originalmente por Sir Seanicus, Esq.:

Political.

It involves people. You do know what the term "politics" in greek that it stems from, is?

Many lice

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por Christmas Fumo Present Unboxing:

Escrito originalmente por crunchyfrog:

It involves people. You do know what the term "politics" in greek that it stems from, is?

Many lice

Well, technically "affairs of the cities".

[Blitz4]

Escrito originalmente por Christmas Fumo Present Unboxing:

amazing everything you said made me not wanna read it only out of sheer curiosity how worse it would get

the last part especially made you lose all credibility to me.

I call it deconstructing a post. I don't know why people do it. If they only see the wrong in things, they'll never know what's right.

EDIT: Video News maybe partially to blame, they'll pick a side and fight to the end for their 'side' - but that's not unbiased Journalism. Take a question from a Radio DJ for example, presenting a situation and asking the audience to call to provide their take on what the person should do A or B, to keep the conversation going.

See. There's at least 2 ways to keep a conversation going.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por Blitz4:

Escrito originalmente por Christmas Fumo Present Unboxing:

amazing everything you said made me not wanna read it only out of sheer curiosity how worse it would get

the last part especially made you lose all credibility to me.

I call it deconstructing a post. I don't know why people do it. If they only see the wrong in things, they'll never know what's right.

EDIT: Video News maybe partially to blame, they'll pick a side and fight to the end for their 'side' - but that's not unbiased Journalism. Take a question from a Radio DJ for example, presenting a situation and asking the audience to call to provide their take on what the person should do A or B, to keep the conversation going.

See. There's at least 2 ways to keep a conversation going.

Actually no, that's not true.

Especially on here, where myths do live to travel, a post can have many claims and if someone makes a flawed claim, then we are free to correcct it.

It does NOT mean we're taking a side.
It does NOT mean we agree with it.
It does NOT mean that the whoel post or the conclusion is wrong.

That simply isn't how philosophy works.

And furthermore, these ARE DISCUSSIONS forums.

[Blitz4]

Escrito originalmente por crunchyfrog:

Escrito originalmente por Blitz4:

I call it deconstructing a post. I don't know why people do it. If they only see the wrong in things, they'll never know what's right.

EDIT: Video News maybe partially to blame, they'll pick a side and fight to the end for their 'side' - but that's not unbiased Journalism. Take a question from a Radio DJ for example, presenting a situation and asking the audience to call to provide their take on what the person should do A or B, to keep the conversation going.

See. There's at least 2 ways to keep a conversation going.

Actually no, that's not true.

Especially on here, where myths do live to travel, a post can have many claims and if someone makes a flawed claim, then we are free to correcct it.

It does NOT mean we're taking a side.
It does NOT mean we agree with it.
It does NOT mean that the whoel post or the conclusion is wrong.

That simply isn't how philosophy works.

And furthermore, these ARE DISCUSSIONS forums.

you used the word actually

regarding dissecting a post. why not quote the post in its entirety and comment below that? it takes work to add all those quote tags and format it properly. in the heat of an argument, as that's how I see this typically playing out, you're more likely to go through each and every word with a fine tooth comb if you dissect it rather than having a rational discussion by quoting it in its entirety. just as the recipient of the dissection stated, they ignored it, I also ignore those posts, I imagine others do as well.

sure you may be "throwing everything you can" to win. yet you're losing viewers and other active participants with the tactic.

the mention of video news is to demonstrate how much it influenced our way of thinking. it's changed us. I'm probably a bit biased, I see all video that isn't educational as news, it's fluff or entertainment that I don't need in my life, but my endorphins want it. if we approached a post we disagree with using tactics from a real journalist, they would see both sides of the story, give a neutral viewpoint, cite references to back up any statement, with a lack of references they'd use words like "i think" or "i believe" instead of "i know" or "you're wrong". I can't remember the last reference I've seen cited on steam and I've never seen philosophy discussed, that'd be cool actually.

I don't disagree with what grover said. I simply feel the format is not the most efficient unless your goal is to get in the last word, in which case it is the best tactic. i also don't want to derail the topic. i've got so many 2 cent pieces, I can't give them away.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por Blitz4:

Escrito originalmente por crunchyfrog:

Actually no, that's not true.

Especially on here, where myths do live to travel, a post can have many claims and if someone makes a flawed claim, then we are free to correcct it.

It does NOT mean we're taking a side.
It does NOT mean we agree with it.
It does NOT mean that the whoel post or the conclusion is wrong.

That simply isn't how philosophy works.

And furthermore, these ARE DISCUSSIONS forums.

you used the word actually

regarding dissecting a post. why not quote the post in its entirety and comment below that? it takes work to add all those quote tags and format it properly. in the heat of an argument, as that's how I see this typically playing out, you're more likely to go through each and every word with a fine tooth comb if you dissect it rather than having a rational discussion by quoting it in its entirety. just as the recipient of the dissection stated, they ignored it, I also ignore those posts, I imagine others do as well.

sure you may be "throwing everything you can" to win. yet you're losing viewers and other active participants with the tactic.

the mention of video news is to demonstrate how much it influenced our way of thinking. it's changed us. I'm probably a bit biased, I see all video that isn't educational as news, it's fluff or entertainment that I don't need in my life, but my endorphins want it. if we approached a post we disagree with using tactics from a real journalist, they would see both sides of the story, give a neutral viewpoint, cite references to back up any statement, with a lack of references they'd use words like "i think" or "i believe" instead of "i know" or "you're wrong". I can't remember the last reference I've seen cited on steam and I've never seen philosophy discussed, that'd be cool actually.

I don't disagree with what grover said. I simply feel the format is not the most efficient unless your goal is to get in the last word, in which case it is the best tactic. i also don't want to derail the topic. i've got so many 2 cent pieces, I can't give them away.

I don't see how any of that disputes my points.

The facts stand how it is on here.

And as for me using the word, so what? Does it negate what I said in context of the sentence I used it in?

[gugnihr]

Too much debate, not enough hate, can we please just keep it simple and say that even torture would not be bad enough for Swine?

[MeowDread]

People hate the Epic store because people want to create meaningless drama over nonexistent problems.
Exclusives arent a big deal.

[crunchyfrog]

Escrito originalmente por ICantThinkOfAnOriginalName:

People hate the Epic store because people want to create meaningless drama over nonexistent problems.
Exclusives arent a big deal.

Again, this is not true.
SOME do want to do that, but strawmanning everyone else doesn't make it so.

There are many on here who have stated very real reasons they don't like it - from a terrible lack of features to their dihonesty and early behaviour, to their business practices and more.

[MeowDread]

Escrito originalmente por crunchyfrog:

Escrito originalmente por ICantThinkOfAnOriginalName:

People hate the Epic store because people want to create meaningless drama over nonexistent problems.
Exclusives arent a big deal.

Again, this is not true.
SOME do want to do that, but strawmanning everyone else doesn't make it so.

There are many on here who have stated very real reasons they don't like it - from a terrible lack of features to their dihonesty and early behaviour, to their business practices and more.

Alright, i agree that its scummy to buy exclusivity, but a lack of features isnt really a big problem. Things take time to develop, epic just got in late.
Could you give examples of dishonesty? I'd like to know about that.
Personally, i dont really use epic myself, because steam is genuinely a larger and better storefront since it came early