News Epic Steamrolled Through 2021 Giving Away $18 Billion in Games

[Admin]

Epic promises to continue weekly free games through 2022, and users will benefit from extensive platform upgrades affecting libraries, downloads, social, ratings, game hubs, and more.

Epic Steamrolled Through 2021 Giving Away $18 Billion in Games : Read more

 

[Heat_Fan89]

That's interesting because Epic has said, in order to make money you have to spend money. I wonder if Epic feels the same way after giving away $18 billion in games? Gog.com from what i've read is getting out of the business of selling games from their Store. Gog.com and Epic Games both wanted to take away business from Steam but at this point, Steam is too much of a known entity, warts and all. Microsoft also tried about 10 yrs ago going up against Steam with Games For Windows Live and that bombed a few years later.

The other factor is, gamers who spend money on digital games, know there's a very good chance Steam will be around in the next few years and they will have access to their games. Although Steam has said before that if they were to close up shop, they would remove DRM from every game on their Store.

 

[-Fran-]

I still don't understand how this is legal... I truly don't.

I mean, sure, they're dumping a lot of money on people and whatnot, but if EPIC goes down or the store closes, people that has actually spent money in it will lose their libraries and all.

There's a good saying which goes: "if it's good, be suspicious; if it is too good, get worried".

Regards.

 

[ezst036]

It would be nice to see Epic bring the Store to Linux natively. Unfortunately, from what I understand a short time ago Tim Sweeney decided to drink the kool-aid.

 

[TerryLaze]

That's interesting because Epic has said, in order to make money you have to spend money. I wonder if Epic feels the same way after giving away $18 billion in games?

Just because the retail price of all the games they gave away totals 18 billion doesn't mean that they spent that much.
I'm pretty sure the deals epic make covers a whole lot of exposure for the game studios and that they only pay pennies on the dollar for each game they give away.
Game studios often enough give away games completely for free for promotion.

 

[wifiburger]

ok... they gave $18 billions worth of games; you can rest assured it didn't cost Epic anywhere close to that amount !

I like Epic store, one of my favorite stores; I hate everything Steam
I have most of their free offers since they started and a few purchases.

 

[thisisaname]

"There are now over 194 million Epic Games Store PC users, an increase of 34M from 2020,"

I wonder how many of them are just there for the free games and have not spent anything.

 

[WarWolverineWarrior]

That's cool but when is Epic Deck coming out? I think Steam Deck is going to steam roll right through.

 

[GenericUser]

I wonder how many of them are just there for the free games and have not spent anything.

I can only speak for myself, but I've gotten dozens of free titles off Epic and have spent 0 dollars there. I imagine there's quite a few.

 

[TerryLaze]

I wonder how many of them are just there for the free games and have not spent anything.

Doesn't matter, I mean it does but high user numbers are still a good bargaining chip for epic and a good incentive for publishers, it's a target group, I mean how many people watch an add on TV millions of times but never buy the product?! Same thing, as long as some (enough) people buy it it's still a win.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Yeah, they can say it’s worth 18 billion all they want if nobody’s buying it it’s worth zero so far return of almost $1, billion off of zero that’s not too bad

Most of those free games I wouldn’t touch anyway so to me they’re worth zero dollars

 

[TerryLaze]

That's cool but when is Epic Deck coming out? I think Steam Deck is going to steam roll right through.

Kinda double edged sword there, how many people that buy/bought the steam deck will not have any steam account already? It's up to the fates if it will generate enough new sales to be worth it.
And if you mean something else other than the steam deck will generate steam sales then I don't know what it could be.
Also steam deck will be able to run windows and possibly even on the steamOS, or whatever it will be, you are probably going to be able to install and use epic and any other launcher.

 

[WarWolverineWarrior]

Kinda double edged sword there, how many people that buy/bought the steam deck will not have any steam account already? It's up to the fates if it will generate enough new sales to be worth it.
And if you mean something else other than the steam deck will generate steam sales then I don't know what it could be.
Also steam deck will be able to run windows and possibly even on the steamOS, or whatever it will be, you are probably going to be able to install and use epic and any other launcher.

I meant Steam Deck will come with Steam OS 3.0 and will require you to buy games off steam for compatibility with Steam Deck. There's also nothing competing in the price point and game compatibility with Steam Deck that Valve is developing. If you acquire a Steam Deck, you're most likely buying games by going to the native game store.

 

[TerryLaze]

I meant Steam Deck will come with Steam OS 3.0 and will require you to buy games off steam for compatibility with Steam Deck. There's also nothing competing in the price point and game compatibility with Steam Deck that Valve is developing. If you acquire a Steam Deck, you're most likely buying games by going to the native game store.

I doubt many people will buy a steam game they don't want to play just because it's compatible. Most people that have steam already have vast steam libraries, it's pretty much guaranteed that some of those games will have the best experience compatibility.

It has to break into the switch and console user market share, people that never played a steam game before and always had only consoles.
I might be wrong but the feeling I got is that the steamdeck mostly went to PC enthusiasts.

 

[gio2vanni86]

Steam i swore gave out some of their games for free when it was new back in the early 2000's. However i will say Steam is better in terms of how you can install games on different drives. I dont understand why Epic has yet to do this which is why i try my best to not buy games on their. They need to compete with steam, hell even Origin which has been around longer does not allow it, nor does Activision\blizzards. I've had to reimagine my next PC in this format. Putting each platform on its own drive. It would be great if all game platforms allowed for multiple different installation of games on different drives. Steam so far is the only winner here. As for subscription gaming, i will never rely on such nonsense. Although i have heard people being able to play games on their phones with such a service as Xbox game pass.

 

[sizzling]

That's interesting because Epic has said, in order to make money you have to spend money. I wonder if Epic feels the same way after giving away $18 billion in games? Gog.com from what i've read is getting out of the business of selling games from their Store. Gog.com and Epic Games both wanted to take away business from Steam but at this point, Steam is too much of a known entity, warts and all. Microsoft also tried about 10 yrs ago going up against Steam with Games For Windows Live and that bombed a few years later.

The other factor is, gamers who spend money on digital games, know there's a very good chance Steam will be around in the next few years and they will have access to their games. Although Steam has said before that if they were to close up shop, they would remove DRM from every game on their Store.

Between Game Pass which had the steam distributed games I was interested in and the games Steam hasn’t had, I have not bought a game from steam in 2 or more years. I remember a time when I bought nearly all my games from Steam.

 

[salgado18]

That's interesting because Epic has said, in order to make money you have to spend money. I wonder if Epic feels the same way after giving away $18 billion in games? Gog.com from what i've read is getting out of the business of selling games from their Store. Gog.com and Epic Games both wanted to take away business from Steam but at this point, Steam is too much of a known entity, warts and all. Microsoft also tried about 10 yrs ago going up against Steam with Games For Windows Live and that bombed a few years later.

The other factor is, gamers who spend money on digital games, know there's a very good chance Steam will be around in the next few years and they will have access to their games. Although Steam has said before that if they were to close up shop, they would remove DRM from every game on their Store.

I believe GoG at least has a selling point: no DRM, and you can download installers of all their games for backup purposes. Epic has nothing different from Steam, and it's even behind in many areas (natural, since Steam has been in development for far longer). I myself prefer to buy on GoG for the backup and no DRM, given the choice. Epic? Ubisoft? Blizzard? Microsoft? Only for exclusives. But if anyone wants to get some of Steam's cake, they need to develop the tools that Steam has: community tools, Workshop, Steam Play/Link, Market, etc.

I don't think Steam can remove DRM from anything without asking the developers first, and I also think most of them wouldn't want that. Nice words, but they can't promise that.

 

[-Fran-]

I believe GoG at least has a selling point: no DRM, and you can download installers of all their games for backup purposes. Epic has nothing different from Steam, and it's even behind in many areas (natural, since Steam has been in development for far longer). I myself prefer to buy on GoG for the backup and no DRM, given the choice. Epic? Ubisoft? Blizzard? Microsoft? Only for exclusives. But if anyone wants to get some of Steam's cake, they need to develop the tools that Steam has: community tools, Workshop, Steam Play/Link, Market, etc.

I don't think Steam can remove DRM from anything without asking the developers first, and I also think most of them wouldn't want that. Nice words, but they can't promise that.

They can remove SteamWorks from everything they publish and/or make a self-pass mechanism for games that depend on it. Pirates already do it, so I'm sure Valve can 😀

But the likelihood of Steam (or Valve, I should say) going under is very slim. They're not a publicly traded Company either (IIRC), so no shareholders shenanigans (which I'd say it's what has kept Steam a good neutral place). EPIC is biased and other publishers know that; same with anything Microsoft puts or any other big publisher (like EA or Ubisoft). While Valve is still a publisher, they've had many years of supporting not only small Indie devs, but also built features the rest wishes they could have developed ages ago. Look at their review system. What else is out there that can match it? Metacritic? And that's a 3rd party tool. And finally, they've been consistent. Something not even their competitors have done.

Regards.

 

[TerryLaze]

I believe GoG at least has a selling point: no DRM, and you can download installers of all their games for backup purposes.

Yeah that works well for ancient games (which is the point of good old games) that have stopped being developed decades ago and are relatively small compared to todays games, for any modern(ish) game it's completely useless since any patch could be as large as the installation in size making the whole point moot, unless you are ok with playing semi finished games that are mostly broken.

I don't think Steam can remove DRM from anything without asking the developers first, and I also think most of them wouldn't want that. Nice words, but they can't promise that.

They are only talking about the steam "DRM" meaning the games that require steam to be loaded for them to run, steam can make it so that that's not needed anymore, any other DRM on top of that would still work and would still need the original devs.

 

[salgado18]

They can remove SteamWorks from everything they publish and/or make a self-pass mechanism for games that depend on it. Pirates already do it, so I'm sure Valve can 😀

They are only talking about the steam "DRM" meaning the games that require steam to be loaded for them to run, steam can make it so that that's not needed anymore, any other DRM on top of that would still work and would still need the original devs.

I don't mean technically, which is easy enough, but legally. Will devs accept that their games now don't have any form of DRM to which they signed to before? Steam can't remove that without the consent of each developer, and it would mean that some games you bought would be available to you after Steam shuts down, but others wouldn't. But that's just mere speculation, I also don't think there's any reason Steam will disappear.

But the point is also one of choice. I like many things on Steam, but I don't like many others. Are there other neutral stores that fulfill these needs? GoG does it in some way (I prefer reviews with ratings instead of a like/dislike, for example), but Epic doesn't do anything different to be worthy of becoming the main store for someone. That's the danger of their tactic, and unless they can make it as good as Steam in the most important aspects and can create features that make people want to use it instead of other stores, it all may be money thrown away.

 

[TerryLaze]

I don't mean technically, which is easy enough, but legally. Will devs accept that their games now don't have any form of DRM to which they signed to before? Steam can't remove that without the consent of each developer, and it would mean that some games you bought would be available to you after Steam shuts down, but others wouldn't. But that's just mere speculation, I also don't think there's any reason Steam will disappear.

The options for the devs would be to like it or to deal with thousands or even millions of users that will be mad with them because now their games don't work.

Also there would be a transitional time period in which the devs can come up with whatever solution they want to.

Destiny 2 migrated all of their accounts from blizzard to steam not long ago because bungie and activision split up and they send out emails to everybody informing them about that and you could transfer your account just by clicking on a button, if steam would shut down and the devs would want to keep some DRM up they would have to create one and migrate all the accounts to it.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Yeah that works well for ancient games (which is the point of good old games) that have stopped being developed decades ago and are relatively small compared to todays games, for any modern(ish) game it's completely useless since any patch could be as large as the installation in size making the whole point moot, unless you are ok with playing semi finished games that are mostly broken.

There are plenty of brand-new games on GOG and their delivery mechanism seems to work just fine. And "GOG" hasn't stood for "Good Old Games" since they rebranded a decade ago.

 

[TerryLaze]

There are plenty of brand-new games on GOG and their delivery mechanism seems to work just fine. And "GOG" hasn't stood for "Good Old Games" since they rebranded a decade ago.

I know but for every game that is still in active development you need to re download the installation if you want to keep that, and that can be around 100Gb every single time for the big games.
Or you keep a very old version and are just as much out of luck if anything happens to the platform as in you won't be able to update it.

 

[Ogotai]

However i will say Steam is better in terms of how you can install games on different drives. I dont understand why Epic has yet to do this which is why i try my best to not buy games on their. They need to compete with steam, hell even Origin which has been around longer does not allow it, nor does Activision\blizzards

you sure about that ? i dont know about Epic, but with Origin and Blizzard, you can, been installing games from both thats not the default ( c:\program Files? ) to my D drive for ages now

 

[TJ Hooker]

I know but for every game that is still in active development you need to re download the installation if you want to keep that, and that can be around 100Gb every single time for the big games.
Or you keep a very old version and are just as much out of luck if anything happens to the platform as in you won't be able to update it.

They provide smaller, incremental patch downloads to update your game in my experience. So you don't have to re-download the whole game if you don't want to.