The Outer Worlds goes Epic Games Store-exclusive (also Windows Store)

[Gangrelrumbler]

Not sure that's due to competition. It's about who thought of if first.
You can think it wouldn't have ever happened if Microsoft didn't enter the console market to compete with Sony but that's just stupid. It could've just as easily started from Sony, it's not like they're strangers to anti-consumer practices.

This is just plain speculation. Sony didn't introduce the system before someone didn't show them that this shit works. Most devs decided to not roll with the DLCs until games that did showed them how easy gamers are to squeeze. It's the same with microtransactions, lootboxes etc. Competition makes companies get better at what they do, but what they do is collect money, not compete over "best service ever trophy". Sure, they will try to copy solutions that are good for players. But they will also copy all scummy money, pinching schemes if they see that they work.
So if Epic somehow succeeds you can expect review censorship and exclusives to come to Steam, what a gain for the consumer.

And if consumers embrace bad practices... well, you can hardly call them anti-consumer, can you? If you don't like them, then separate yourself from the consumer crowd and stop feeding the bad practices.

All practices that hurt consumers are anti-consumer no matter if gamers decided to roll with it or boycott it. It's not like people supported X-Box live because they wanted to. It was the only way to play hit games like super-popular Halo online. Another example where exclusivity leads to worse outcome for everyone. And separating yourself is a terriblydumb advice considering the fact that PS4 also has paid online, so even if don't embrace bad decision it doesn't matter since there are enough morons to make your decision irrelevant.

Bullshit. They're outraged the game is not on Steam. The main complaint is "I have to install another client". It's got nothing to do with principles. Only convenience and such blind loyalty to a brand that Steam essentially has a strangehold on the entire PC market.

Funny how I've never seen this outrage over Overwatch or Diablo III or Dragon Age Inquisition or Mass Effect 3 or Battlefield games or Fifa or Gwent or literally any other game that skipped Steam. Funny how gamers never before had any problems with "installing another client" and were never "blindly loyal". Funny how only one store in existence has this kind of problems, but it's obviously not their fault. Poor, poor Epic store that didn't do anything, but is somehow bullied for no reason by toxic Steam users.

 

[a Goat]

DeDivision 2 is still on uplay

Owned by Ubisoft. All their games use UPlay regardless of it being on a 3rd party Store.

tow is on windows store.

Obsidian is owned by MS now, it's expected that their new game will at least be on an MS platform.

Kind of missing my point here. It's not really exclusivity deal, it's "FUGG STEAM xDDDD" deal.

 

[Jarpie]

Oh look, another thread split by shilltron, cue my shock.

 

[thesheeep]

You know, independent of what one thinks of the store, I'm extremely curious about sales numbers once the 1-year period is over and people can normally buy on Steam.
Will it be like it doesn't matter?
Will it be like a second release?
Will it be a noticeable boost (like a new DLC release or something)?
Will previous drama play a role?
Will anyone have bought it on the Windows store?

I do hope we'll eventually get a few sales numbers - indies are way more likely to make them public, though.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's an RPG, if it's any good it will continue selling on Steam long after Epic Store goes bankrupt.

 

[Quillon]

And Obsidian are not my favorite studio. I don't even know if I have a favorite studio.

Most popular studio on CDX, must be most everyone's fav studio here. Tho yeah in here its cool to hate them or hate anything really, so I don't blame anyone, GET ON THE HATE-TRAIN CHOO CHOOO!

 

[Dexter]

Are you even familiar with Valve? "Valve time" is a thing for a reason. I can guarantee they've been working on this for far longer than Epic's store was even a glimmer in Sweeney's dead eyes. They didn't throw this together in 3 weeks.

The weird thing that you actually seem to believe that. Maybe you should let go of your own very obvious fanboyism, before wrongly accusing others?
Oh, btw... Epic Store was announced in December 2018. A change like that is absolutely doable in three months with even a small team. Hell, I could probably do it alone (if I let go of sleep...). I doubt Valve just has a small team working on Steam.

This is just absolutely retarded, there's a lot of retarded statements made throughout the thread, but this one was so retarded I actually had to comment on it. They've been working on (and have announced) an UI upgrade since Mid-2017: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/07/08/steam-ui-overhaul-incoming-valve-presentation-confirms/
There's slides with the upcoming features on them:

Early Mockups were discovered even earlier than that:

That piece of shit clickbait-style image is a collection of bullshit, lies and blatant exaggeration.

I mostly agree with you on that and they are overstating their case, but the cavalier attitude displayed towards the absolute breaches of privacy commited by the likes of Google and the rhetoric of arguing by saying "Google does it too!":

Every single point this "thing" presents and finds totally terrible can be easily explained by anyone who actually knows a thing about software.
Just take that "Sweeney wants to know where you are!" statement - of course he does! As does every other software that has localized content, pricing, etc. And because one method of acquiring a user's location might fail, you try out multiple ones.
Or "Datamine what games you like!" - you mean, just like Steam or every other store that collects data on what you view/buy and uses that information to give you personalised content? How terrible... That it uses Steam's files to gain that info is actually rather clever, but it could do exactly the same through the Steam API. The files way means that Valve won't get to know everything Epic does with the data.
Or "Two different domains to track what you're doing" - Completely normal for any kind of user software that tracks usage data. Usually something like Google Analytics to track steps through the app and then other service(s) to track other data. If you find that bad, you're probably better off with an abacus than a computer.
Or the "security certificates" thing - normal procedure for almost every software using Chromium to display a website inside (or as) their UI. Chromium has to access certificates for - wait for it ! - certification.
Or "Why is your client looking at browser settings" - because the EGS (like most store-front software) is a browser itself, so it checks your normal browser's settings to apply some of these settings to itself.
Or "It's scraping names and paths of processes on your computer" - yeah, no shit. That's how you can tell which games are running (for example, to put an overlay on them), or to prevent running double instances of the EGS itself. There are many, many reasons to scan running applications' names.
The only part I find strange is why it would try to create a "shcore.dll" in the Fiddler directory - though I suspect that is actually Fiddler itself through some kind of injection, possible related to how it gathers its data.

while Ad-Blockers and Anti-Tracking software has increased in popularity immensely (and is even included in fresh browsers and the like) and pretending like most people know or don't actually mind what Google/Facebook are doing while they face billions of $'s in lawsuits: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/228755/20180528/google-facebook-face-big-gdpr-headache-—-8-8-billion-in-lawsuits.htm and are under scrutiny by legislative bodies worldwide exactly because of these practices:

and also pretending all of this is just fine and in no way controversial, calling an absolute breach of privacy that you admit might be illegal and is definitely a breach of trust (which is why Epic is apparently trying to change it as quick as possible) "clever" is about at least as dishonest, and also retarded.

 

[fantadomat]

Meh murican senetors "grill" internet corporation every month but nothing comes out of it. The whole shit is absolute joke,some smug assholes go there and lie like magic potion peddlers and senetors just take up the ass.

 

[thesheeep]

Are you even familiar with Valve? "Valve time" is a thing for a reason. I can guarantee they've been working on this for far longer than Epic's store was even a glimmer in Sweeney's dead eyes. They didn't throw this together in 3 weeks.

The weird thing that you actually seem to believe that. Maybe you should let go of your own very obvious fanboyism, before wrongly accusing others?
Oh, btw... Epic Store was announced in December 2018. A change like that is absolutely doable in three months with even a small team. Hell, I could probably do it alone (if I let go of sleep...). I doubt Valve just has a small team working on Steam.

This is just absolutely retarded, there's a lot of retarded statements made throughout the thread, but this one was so retarded I actually had to comment on it. They've been working on (and have announced) an UI upgrade since Mid-2017: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/07/08/steam-ui-overhaul-incoming-valve-presentation-confirms/
There's slides with the upcoming features on them:

Spoiler

Early Mockups were discovered even earlier than that:

Spoiler

Interesting. But you know what? It doesn't change much.

I say that as someone who develops UIs for a living (including working with Chromium):
It is completely and utterly impossible that a developer with Valve's resources would take over two years to put out what is for the most part just a UI update (most of what they mention there has been part of Steam since way before 2017, so it can only be about showing it differently).
Either that or they are so incompetent, and their VGUI so abysmally bad, that we should all be very scared. I don't really believe in the latter, though, as their tech is usually pretty good, judging from their APIs and engine.
If Valve really takes years to make an update that others could do in a few months, they deserve every heat from every direction they get.
Don't you think it an interesting coincidence that they finally show their work at this moment? And that it basically doesn't even differ from what they showed two years ago? Obviously, it isn't done yet, and also obviously, the whole thing probably lay on ice for a long time since then.
I still remain with my statement that Epic woke them up and made them realize they should probably get their butts moving. Because there is no other logical explanation.

and also pretending all of this is just fine and in no way controversial, calling an absolute breach of privacy that you admit might be illegal and is definitely a breach of trust (which is why Epic is apparently trying to change it as quick as possible) "clever" is about at least as dishonest, and also retarded.

Quite frankly, you must have an enormous amount of stuff to hide if you are that afraid of Epic looking at your Steam files to get your games, Steam friends and location.
Me? I don't care, cause I got nothing to hide. And if I had, it wouldn't be part of Steam files
You can rant about your holy privacy and breaches of it all you want, I belong firmly in the group of people who realized that we have long entered the age of post-privacy. I simply do not care who knows what about me, believe it or not. I know this is not a popular opinion around here, but again, I just don't care.
And ten years from now, most people will have accepted stuff like that as the norm, too, and will simply not care any more. You can't win elections with privacy concerns

And the "clever" was about the technical side of it, trying to get Valve's data without using Valve's API.

 

[Dexter]

Interesting. But you know what? It doesn't change much.

It makes you absolutely wrong and your smug and self-assured way of calling someone wrong, that was actually right makes you look like a dick. And now you're changing goalposts and are trying to turn your new realization against Valve too while not backing off from your previous one, like the unbiased, rational individual you obviously are.

Quite frankly, you must have an enormous amount of stuff to hide if you are that afraid of Epic looking at your Steam files to get your games, Steam friends and location.
Me? I don't care, cause I got nothing to hide. And if I had, it wouldn't be part of Steam files
You can rant about your privacy all you want, I belong firmly in the group of people who realized that we have long entered the age of post-privacy. I simply do not care who knows what about me, believe it or not. I know this is not a popular opinion around here, but again, I just don't care.

And now you're using the "Nothing to Hide" argument/fallacy, used by retards all around the world to act as an apologist for the unacceptable. It's so famous, there's even a Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument and people have written entire books and papers on it.

Meh murican senetors "grill" internet corporation every month but nothing comes out of it. The whole shit is absolute joke,some smug assholes go there and lie like magic potion peddlers and senetors just take up the ass.

Major Silicon Valley company and privacy regulations will come within the next decade in the US - this is something that Democrats and Republicans can already largely agree on and is so obvious that some of the Democrat candidates like Warren and Gabbard have made it flagpole of their presidential campaigns, the only question is by whom and how exactly they will look.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Major Silicon Valley company and privacy regulations will come within the next decade in the US - this is something that Democrats and Republicans can already largely agree on and is so obvious that some of the Democrat candidates like Warren and Gabbard have made them flagpoles of their presidential campaigns, the only question is by whom and how exactly they will look.

Honestly, the companies fucked themselves by going after conservatives. If they had stayed mostly politically neutral there would have been enough opposition from the free-market republicans to stop any sort of legislation imposing regulations IMO.

 

[thesheeep]

Interesting. But you know what? It doesn't change much.

It makes you absolutely wrong and your smug and self-assured way of calling someone wrong, that was actually right makes you look like a dick. And now you're changing goalposts and are trying to turn your new realization against Valve too, like the unbiased individual, rational individual you obviously are.

I am not trying anything, I am succeeding. And I don't give a flying fuck what that makes me look to you.
Please point out what about my "new realization" is factually wrong. Hey, maybe you are also a UI developer who happens to work with almost the same tech with 10+ years under your belt and could actually give some valuable input.

Quite frankly, you must have an enormous amount of stuff to hide if you are that afraid of Epic looking at your Steam files to get your games, Steam friends and location.
Me? I don't care, cause I got nothing to hide. And if I had, it wouldn't be part of Steam files
You can rant about your privacy all you want, I belong firmly in the group of people who realized that we have long entered the age of post-privacy. I simply do not care who knows what about me, believe it or not. I know this is not a popular opinion around here, but again, I just don't care.

And now you're using the "Nothing to Hide" argument/fallacy, used by retards all around the world to act as an apologist for the unacceptable. It's so famous, there's even a Wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument and people have written entire books and papers about it.

The "Nothing to Hide" argument was never proven as false by anyone. If it were so, you would find that little detail in the Wikipedia article, too. It was written by Wiki-people anyway and we all know their mindset It's not something like scientific racism that has long been proven scientifically wrong.
Any piece of data about you that exists can ultimately not be considered private, because whoever wants access, can get it, legally or illegally. Therefore, do not produce pieces of data that you'd want hidden if you fear the consequences of someone discovering them. There's nothing factually wrong about this argument.
You are the one calling it a fallacy, but that doesn't make it true.
Books written about it by people who have something to hide are aren't proving anything, etiher. Especially since you got just the same from the other direction.

 

[Dexter]

It's not only extremely stupid, it's also not very clever, since one could simply ask "Why don't you tell us your full name, address, bank information and credit card information then?" or "Why don't you shower in the middle of the street and provide us with a picture of you naked then?" which would prove that you have something to hide.

 

[thesheeep]

It's not only stupid, it's also not very clever, since one could simply ask "Why don't you tell us your full name, address, bank information and credit card information then?" or "Why don't you shower in the middle of the street and provide us with a picture of you naked then?" which would prove that you have something to hide.

Ah, the typical nonsense reply.
This is about data you produced, not some arbitrary non-existent data someone wants from you. If I had taken a video of myself taking a shower, uploaded that to some "private" online collection, then I would be an utter fool to think it would be eternally safe. That I don't want to show off everything doesn't imply that I actively try to hide it. I use public showers in public baths, for example. Why? I got nothing to hide. I'm a guy with a dick, nothing fancy to see here.

Bank and credit card information can obviously be used to steal from me. Hence, I haven't produced any data just showing all those numbers anywhere.
I'm not arguing for a world in which every possible information is open, that's absurd. But that is also not the point of the "Nothing to Hide" argument, which is about data that can only be used against you if you did something illegal. Stuff like phone call logs, CCTV, etc.
There is no such thing as a reality in which my Steam files can be used against me. Or my location. Or my browser settings.

 

[fantadomat]

Major Silicon Valley company and privacy regulations will come within the next decade in the US - this is something that Democrats and Republicans can already largely agree on and is so obvious that some of the Democrat candidates like Warren and Gabbard have made it flagpole of their presidential campaigns, the only question is by whom and how exactly they will look.

Yeah,sure wait and hope for the big man to boned in the ass after a decade or two....or maybe three or four. That why i am telling you that they are useless oh great sheeple. Even the EU knows when to put down the boot on their stinking tendrils,while Chine just doesn't give a fuck about them and either they do as told are kicked out of the biggest market on the world.

 

[Dexter]

Bank and credit card information can obviously be used to steal from me. Hence, I haven't produced any data just showing all those numbers anywhere.

So you essentially admit that you have something to hide, and you even state the reason why - because harm could befall you.

But that is also not the point of the "Nothing to Hide" argument, which is about data that can only be used against you if you did something illegal. Stuff like phone call logs, CCTV, etc.
There is no such thing as a reality in which my Steam files can be used against me. Or my location. Or my browser settings.

Again, there are entire papers dealing with said argument in all its forms and contexts that have thought about it and spent far more time debunking it than I ever care to do, see for instance: https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications

There is obviously such a reality where the things you state can be used against you, you just need to look into very recent history e.g. Nazi regime, Communist regime, GDR where such simple things as your location data or browsing history could get you tortured or worse. It's not really about you, and the things that can hurt you or can be used against you can be entirely arbitrary and not even your fault, like your skin color or ethnic background.

But you don't even need to go back in history - you just need to take a look at the daily Twatter mobs or consider other regions of the world, and yes even Steam data could get someone in trouble, for instance: https://store.steampowered.com/app/950740/China_Maos_legacy/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/950740/discussions/0/1846946102850674652/

 

[Reinhardt]

It's an RPG

 

[thesheeep]

But that is also not the point of the "Nothing to Hide" argument, which is about data that can only be used against you if you did something illegal. Stuff like phone call logs, CCTV, etc.
There is no such thing as a reality in which my Steam files can be used against me. Or my location. Or my browser settings.

Again, there are entire papers dealing with said argument in all its forms and contexts that have thought about it and spent far more time debunking it than I ever care to do, see for instance: https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications

There is obviously such a reality where the things you state can be used against you, you just need to look into very recent history e.g. Nazi regime, Communist regime, GDR where such simple things as your location data or browsing history could get you tortured or worse. It's not really about you, and the things that can hurt you or can be used against you can be entirely arbitrary and not even your fault, like your skin color or ethnic background.

But you don't even need to go back in history - you just need to take a look at the daily Twatter mobs or consider other regions of the world, and yes even Steam data could get someone in trouble, for instance: https://store.steampowered.com/app/950740/China_Maos_legacy/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/950740/discussions/0/1846946102850674652/

Good luck keeping your skin color hidden and ethnic background hidden, mate... You are reaching extremely to find some basis for your argument.

If I lived in China, I'd also not be playing or developing this game. As doing so would be incredibly stupid, possibly even illegal.
Here's the thing: I'm not doing anything illegal in the region I live in, under the government that could harm me. I am not living under some Nazi regime, nor under some other form of oppression. If I did, I'd adjust and still live a happy life. Or do most Chinese make the impression of living in misery to you? Those I talked to all seemed pretty happy, and rather amused by some "western" concerns...
If others decide to do something illegal under their own circumstances, then that is their own decision, and their own consequences.

You have completely failed to show me why I should care about the EGS scanning my Steam files and browser settings. Because even if they did freely make the information gathered available to anyone around the world, I would in no way be negatively affected.
This is also something that your linked publication fails to show. It does analyze the argument otherwise very well, but focuses pretty much entirely on NSA practices and when it comes to conclusions, only offers some opinions that I can only mildly shake my head at. Seriously, the man argues with Kafka's The Trial, which is interesting, but so extreme in its setting that you just cannot apply it to our reality.
We're still talking about Steam files here, what's your point? "Today they might take your Steam files, but tomorrow your anal virginity!" ? Give me a break

 

[Outlander]

Hey guise what's going on ITT?

 

[thesheeep]

Hey guise what's going on ITT?

Chinese government eating your unborn children and other evil deeds.

 

[Black Angel]

Oh, well..

Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free ~
You are a pirate! ~

Yar har, fiddle de dee ~
Being a pirate is alright to be ~
Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free ~
You are a pirate! ~

Come now, folks, and sail the Seven Seas with me!
I'll be your Captain tonight, have a smooth sailing.

Yarr harr harr!

Also, Epictards and people with plain hate-boner for Steam ITT

I ran into a video game developer down the street the other day, with blue hair and a color assorted chihuahua, begging for money to buy a third soy latte from Starbucks™, complaining that Valve only gave him enough money to buy two of those with their mean rates, it was the saddest thing I ever saw

I already gave all my pocket change to the Syrian refugees in the previous intersection, so I didn't have anything for him, but thankfully a nice chinaman gave him enough money to keep on living the Californian lifestyle

You are a good man,i would have kicked him or stabbed him in a dark alley.

Greetings, good developer. I can offer you a good rate to sell your games on my store for a low low cut of 12%. You just need to follow me to this back alley around the corner....

 

[fantadomat]

This one is better

 

[Atlantico]

If that so, what is even your point? Do you even have a point?

IF you could read, you could find out. It's right there, in the post you quoted - now, there's no point in me repeating what I wrote, if you can actually sharpen up and read, then just go ahead and read it. If you are too fucking retarded to comprehend even the simplest of English, writing it again won't help you.

After repeatedly misquoting me and making bizarre interpretations, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Let me put it in your terms, people do not like that they are forced to use middleware that is not their choice.

Do you piss your pants with rage when you buy Ubi games on Steam? All of them require the UPlay middleware.

So here's what you do for games on Epic, Origin or whatever store, just like before:

1. Launch Steam.
2. Click the Games menu, choose Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library.
3. Browse for games on your computer or put a check next to the game(s) you wish to add to the Library.
4. Click on "Add Selected Programs".
5. Stop whining like a manchild.

If entire length of your post amounts to "I don't care that people cannot use their middleware of choice" then the rightful and appropriate answer is why the fuck should anyone care what do you think?

They're all the same, they often overlap and you can just import the damn game into the middleware of your choice if you must be autistic about it. On to of that I don't care that people can't use the middleware of their choice.

Especially if it is only to point them as shills simply because they do not want to use a worse middleware that had to bruteforce its way to be even seen as an option?

The middleware is not worse between any platforms. They're all the same. Equally terrible.

 

[Reinhardt]

Do you piss your pants with rage when you buy Ubi games on Steam?

buy Ubi games

but why?

 

[Atlantico]

Point out some people in the thread who are shilling for Steam, quote some posts.

I'm not your monkey, bitch.

but why?

That's beside the point. The point is, you are required to use Uplay if you buy a Ubi game on Steam, even though you launch the game through Steam.