Active players can be much more important than people who spend money, since spenders aren’t going to drop money on a game they think is going to die. Whales themselves don’t hold up a game if the player base is low, since it’s many little guppies dropping their spare change that support the games as a service economy as a collective.

When you post a comment it shows up whether it is a new or old account instead of having to meet some karma requirement. Also third party apps are very nice over being pushed to use some bloated ad filled official app.

It’s not that hard to understand when even apps determine whether someone wants to use social media like reddit or lemmy despite the content being the same.

When it comes to archiving piracy is the answer anyways since the average person is not going to be backing up all their games and creating redundant back ups of it.

It’s also that they put out a product I actually find value from like Linux support, Steam Input, forums, workshop, etc. I enjoy using Steam because I find it to be a good experience.

It’s like reasons people prefer Android or Apple even if they share the same apps. Really can’t discount the experience simple things like navigation and social features do to add value. Those who dismiss it as unimportant probably share the same views as some MBA who only looks at the numbers and think they can just enter and corner a market through brute force spending.

In a way it like trying to enter the smartphone market and paying for app exclusives then ignoring the part about polishing the OS experience as much as possible and putting out something that is from the flip phone era.

Epic store not being profitable and despite the backing of Fortnite and Unreal Engine surplas being at the state that it is shows that it is probably much more expensive than expected to make a feature rich launcher. What epic has is more a glorified storefront like humble bundle or Fanatical but worse because it isn’t even selling keys for the platform of your choice, and they have to handle server costs of storing all the games too.

There’s Marvel Rivals which is going to be f2p and is another hero shooter too. So just bad timing and executive decisions overall.

Sorry I don’t remember usernames. All these comments just got mixed up with the rest playing up that angle.

You still haven’t given a reason why to actually use epic despite your attempts to paint a billion dollar company as though it is some altruistic startup. If product isn’t good why should I go out of my way to pay for a worse one from another billionaire. If it is all billionaires I’m going to just pick the better product.

Maybe idea as a concept popped up 8 years ago but actual development didn’t start until years later.

There’s a bigger factor at play which I think is barrier to entry. Now you got individuals or small team of devs being able to publish games themselves on places like Steam, and add to the already huge amount of products that are competing with each other for sales. Used to be in the past when barrier was high these large publishers could gate keep, but now they can’t. And they have to fight ants too instead of just other few whales.

And these small ants have games that catch hype despite being lower budget and worse graphics. It’s a different landscape now. Even reviewers aren’t just some few large outlets they can control anymore, but individuals spread across sharing their opinions and discoveries on social media and places like Steam reviews. Much harder now to control products like in the past.

It’s easier than ever for anyone to publish games. Not the old days anymore when a few publishers controlled the market of who could and couldn’t sell and would get promoted or not. More competion is going to drive down prices. Being able to charge high prices is more a luxury that would have been possible back in the past when consoles ruled supreme as opposed now with barrier to entry having gotten so low.

Maybe stop making games that cost so much and pushing open worlds and realism. Indies and Nintendo games shows that games don’t have to keep pushing such over the top graphics and huge open worlds. Just like how not all movies need a Marvel budget of special effects and CGI.

Naive to think epic is offering a lower cut for altruistic reasons as opposed to it being the only method they could think of to try to convince devs to sell there. And that they wouldn’t jack up the rate once they corned the market given how their how strategy has been more reminiscent of Walmart approach of pricing lowering to gain market share. Biggest sign is that the store isn’t even profitable much like how lot of services these days aren’t profitable and burn money then jack up prices and offer less once they corner the market. Hell even Microsoft Store has offered low rates of 12% because few want to use it. Going to argue Microsoft is nice too now? Not falling for it Tim.

Anyways existing doesn’t entitle you to money. Make something people actually want to use and don’t piss off your potential consumer base from the get go.

I prefer EA and Ubisoft.

I’m guessing the CPU isn’t going to get a big uplift if the PS4 Pro is anything to go by.

What about steam player count? I think that’s the number people are curious about more than reviews.

It makes Suicide Squad and Redfall in retrospect not look as sad with their launch day player counts.

Sony hero shooter with Sony characters would have appealed to me more at least thematically.