Is Epic Games' Founder Tim Sweeney an Anti-Consumer Hypocrite?

Epic Games has been under a lot of fire because of the Metro exclusivity deal and while people on the internet believe it was a wrong move, Epic Games' Founder Tim Sweeney thinks that's not the case.

[Razzer]

“The thing that I feel is incredibly important for the future of the industry is that the PC platform remains open, so that any user without any friction can install applications from any developer, and ensure that no company, Microsoft or anybody else, can insert themselves by force as the universal middleman, and force developers to sell through them instead of selling directly to customers. “
~Tim Sweeney

"Epic Games is paying developers to exclusively sell their games on their store and acting as the middleman so he has literally gone against everything he said. "

Not really. Epic Games isn't forcing developers to do anything. The PC is still an open platform. Epic Games hasn't inserted themselves as the "universal middleman". Epic is engaging in consensual transactions with developers for timed exclusivity on their store. So he isn't going against what he previously said at all.

He is what Sweeney also said in the interview linked:

"Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has battered the UWP initiative, saying "they are working to turn today’s open PC ecosystem into a closed, Microsoft-controlled distribution and commerce monopoly". He calls for companies that play any part in the PC ecosystem to fight back."

This is what Sweeney was talking about and isn't what he is doing now at all.

[thorstein]

Exactly,

To get the Rebel Galaxy sequel: Outlaw, I need an Epic Games account. Why? I will have to wait one year for it to go out on Steam.

I understand the motive of the dev and I don't fault them, but they won't get my money until next year.

[rainslacker]

This is what happens when journalists who try to twist everything out of context try to actually interpret the words of a man who is considered a genius by every measure of the word.

As you say he's not forcing devs, but to expand it further he also isn't preventing users on the PC platform from installing the game from another middleware provider. He's simply the only provider at the moment, although I believe steam pre-orders are still honored aren't they? But he's neither blocking, nor has the ability to block the install of the game from a competitor, which is what he was referencing in reference to UWP.

[Profchaos]

I think that's logical and if agree with you but the steam pre orders were overturned and refunded.

But I see this as a driver for further competition in the PC market space with valve having a firm chokehold on digital distribution since half life 2 why not have someone else actually try and compete valve have not had actual deals for a number of years now

[RizBiz]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone in the industry who talks sh*t about UWP and openly encourages developers to avoid it at all costs is a cherished friend in my book.

[Cobra951]

How can that quote from Tim get twisted into something negative? He's exactly right. The PC is an open system, and you can choose what you install on it, including game services/launchers. Using one doesn't keep you from also using others. There is no real exclusivity at all. The term "exclusive" doesn't even belong in the conversation. Exclusive is when you want to play God of War and you only have an Xbox. I can play Steam games and Epic games on the same PC.

He's also right on the money about UWP. Now there's exclusive. If we fall into that trap, the PC just becomes another Microsoft console, a walled garden.

[opc]

I just think it was kind of crazy that the publisher had Valve feature their game on Steam for tons of advertising and then pulled the game from Steam before it was released. After that stunt I wouldn't be surprised if Valve told them that they won't feature their games until they are actually released

[Double_O_Revan]

Because the Epic store wasn't released until mid December. Up until that point it was clearly coming to Steam.

[Teflon02]

That's no excuse. You cater to the customers. If you were advertising on steam, you release on steam and decide on what you'll do with your next title. That's disgustingly anti consumer. Also the fact some people like me actually like as much game prgress tracked on one thing as possible. This was one of the reasons I never liked PC gaming growing up. Everythings all over the place. I finally got into it because outside of multiplayer games like BF and overwatch all the games I wanted are on Steam outside like really old games I can buy on GoG or UPlay then just import. This is literally becoming the same mess with discord, and epic trying to run stores now. It needs to stop, because epic is going to make PC gaming a big divided mess at this rate smh

[Rachel_Alucard]

It was on sale on Steam for 6 months on top of not being pulled until late January, and looking at the physical box Epic store stickers placed over the Steam logo you can tell this was made at the last minute before it went gold. That kind of tactic is dirty and it's one of the many reasons why people are against EGS and respect Valve.

[S2Killinit]

@opc
It wouldnt be the first time Chinese companies didnt play fair.

[TK-66]

@S2Killinit

To be fair its not just the Chinese. Could argue MS and Sony don't play fair with things like Street Fighter and Titanfall deals.

[CP_Company]

False. They knew it way before. Deal was done after E3 and they knew, just said nothing.

[rainslacker]

They paid for that marketing on Steam. Steam didn't do it out of the kindness of their heart. To my knowledge, Steam has never had a marketing deal where they pay for a developers or publishers publishing. Steam advertising is powerful and effective, hence, it's worth a lot of money. If Steam decided to market it on their own, I doubt they paid for it, hence, the publisher had no obligation to Steam, legally, or ethically.

[Rachel_Alucard]

https://puu.sh/CI0no/6a0b95...

I would look at this line he gave to Game Informer in Dec. basically he knows his service offers no benefit over Steam to consumers and the whole thing is directed at swiping up developers and publishers instead. His plan saying he wants the creators to pass the savings from publishing on EGS is a load of bullshit. There is no way in hell any major publisher like Ubisoft would ever lower their initial price point on all their games, most of the games on the EGS are either more expensive or the same as Steam, and only the U.S. and EU even benefits from the few games that do have a lower initial price. It's not even a matter of will anyone make enough, it's all about profit margins with these people. Ubisoft were doing perfectly fine on Steam, but they saw an opportunity for free money and a double dip experiment with Epic. Now they have 6x the preorders on Uplay because nobody likes EGS. It also feels like Tim wants Valve to start pulling the same dirty tactics that he has, and nobody on the consumer end likes timed exclusives, not even the ones who get it. I still remember when Rise of the tomb raider was announced as an Xbox timed exclusive and everyone including Xbox players were pissed at MS. These exclusivity deals only benefit the devs not the consumers. It's one thing to fund a game's development, but to just toss 25 million at a game weeks before release to prevent it from releasing anywhere else is shady, and it doesn't benefit you, just the creators.

[TK-66]

You know whats really interesting is that their "draw" as to why people should use their store over Steam is the exact same as Crunchyroll with Anime. It can effectively be summarized as "you should give your money to us because we give more of it to the creators of the content" while offering no features or benefits to the consumer.

If MS tomorrow turned round and said "we're lowering the licensing fees on Xbox to 12%" would that alone be a good reason to buy 3rd parties exclusively on Xbox? Obviously not.

[Rachel_Alucard]

As a consumer, this is a very dirty tactic that will get you no fans in the short term and long term. Coming out of the gate pulling tactics like this is exactly why people don't like it. Sure you can just brush it under the rug and claim "What's so hard about installing a launcher?" apparently people have no standards for themselves and they would allow a company to pull shit like Epic has and just not think about the consequences of what they contribute to. It's not about the difficulty or annoyance of using another launcher, it's the fact that a company is now going around tossing money to gatekeep games that shouldn't be stuck to a single store. I don't care if Epic personally funds development and want to keep it to their store like Sony did with SFV. But don't just handwave 25 million at Koch media and others weeks before release, the game loses out on potential sales, reputation and brand name plummets, and people forget about it eventually. This reminds me of the brief 4 day fiasco with the Skyrim paid mods thing that saw people reuploading their free mods as paid ones after removing them from Nexus like SkyUI and everyone collectively shitting on the creators. Lost 6,000 mods, creators left the hobby, and reputations were shot down all over money.

[rainslacker]

It's funny you mention that, because in the digital vs. physical debate, especially in the console space, it's often debated that if we went all digital, the savings would be passed onto the consumer, and prices would be lowered. But because of physical store pricing, that's no possible for some reason which is undefined.

But, this just kind of proves a point I said all along, that if devs/pubs were able to save money on distribution across the board, they'd pocket the savings, and not pass it onto the consumer.

Disregarding all the feature differences between the two, I wouldn't expect games to be cheaper on the service. But, an extra 18% of the revenue generated from the sales of a game is pretty substantial, and realistically, would be enough to drive many publishers to use the store. It's likely they wouldn't disregard steam though, because it's big, and there is no reason to really restrict yourself to one platform, and for the time being, that doen't help make it a more competative market for the industry side of things.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, I agree with Rachel_Alucard on that, though not on anything else. Cost-cutting is seldom passed on to the consumer. That's because pricing is decided by market forces, not by costs alone. A seller that loses money at the prices the market will bear simply goes out of business. A company that can make a killing at those prices will do so.

[Melankolis]

I'm not a PC gamer, so i can't comment a lot. But you PC gamers can have more than one store accounts at the same time right?.
Unlike console, there's no switching or additional cost or maybe just a little i don't know. So "exclusivity" on PC is still accessable without spending more money. So what's the problem?.

[Razzer]

Yes, imagine the annoyance of having to switch "stores" on PS4 and being able to buy Mario or Halo. lol

[S2Killinit]

Until they start charging you monthly subscription fees. Wait for it.

[Melankolis]

1. Then just enjoy while the new store has a better offer. You can always goes to the store next door if you want.
2. The store next door has been charging the developer 30% fee and you're paying without you realizing it.
3. You can always opt to not subscribing and, again, goes to your usual next door store. The price is just a "click" on your screen.

The decision is yours. You can do the math.

[TK-66]

They're already charging us more on EGS. For example in the UK Hello Neighbor and Ashen are more expensive on EGS than their console versions. I don't think I've ever heard of a time where the PC version is more expensive than the console version but for some reason EGS has decided it should be.

[Melankolis]

@Sw33t
Don't know what you've written true or not, but we're not comparing console with PC here. Lol.
Edit : Again. If you think a store sells too high a price, you can always compare with a different store. And that's the advantage being a buyer in a competitive market.

[TK-66]

@melankolis

Think you completely missed my point. A big argument about EGS was that because Epic took a smaller fee that we would see cheaper prices and we haven't

"you can always compare with a different store. And that's the advantage being a buyer in a competitive market."

Try that with Ashen or Metro.

[Seafort]

@Melankolis
Isn't that the point though? We can't compare prices for Ashen or Metro Exodus on different stores as they aren't on different stores. Epic saw to that when they bought their exclusivity for a year.

Some games have a discount but only for US customers. Everywhere else it's more expensive especially for the UK and EU.

I will never support Epic Store and it's anti-consumer and anti-competitive practices. I shall wait till these games come to a store of my choosing not the publishers or Epics.

[Cobra951]

Exactly. Thank you for seeing the whole picture with some clarity. There is no exclusivity here at all, unlike console. It isn't possible. You can play all your Steam games and all your Epic games (and Uplay, and Origin, and GOG . . .) on the same PC, on the same day. The whole brouhaha is a tempest in a teapot.

[opc]

People need to stop lumping in Steam with the others stores and launchers. Steam does more than just categorize and launch games like the others. They offer streaming to other devices on the same network, family sharing. Most importantly, they offer robust controller support, fine-tuning and customization for all the major controllers and 3rd party controllers.

If I want the triggers to activate immediately on a hair trigger I can do that. If I want the bumpers to be the triggers I can do that. If I want to swap the trigger with pressing down the right analog stick on a PS4 controller, I can do that.

In The Witcher 3, My start button opens the main menu, if I press it twice it brings up my objectives, if I hold it, it brings up my inventory, if I press it while holding left trigger it will toggle the HUD, if I press it while holding the option button it will quick save. Only Steam offers this type of control for every game.

[Krussail]

Damn, that's a bad look for Sweeney, and I had come to really respect his opinion when he was speaking out against MS

[xX1NORM1Xx]

No if anything he's pro consumer he's leveraging the money we gave him to make pc games cheaper and easier to make not to mention the creator code stuff that cuts epics share once again to give back to the community that helped build fortnite...

Maybe the epic store isnt as good as steam in terms of features, thats a completly fair analysis its lacking mod support, user reviews, automatic refunds, community features etc but you have to remember steam didnt launch in the state its in now...

It's built up its feature list over nearly 15 years should a store have user reviews day 1? Absolutly thats the bare minimum but people arent seeing the big picture of how this effects the pc game market.

A year or two and epic will have most of these features they are forcing steam to be better we've already seen games be cheaper because of the unreal rebate and the extra revenue a dev can get from epic, steam is gonna have to clean up its act because epic will soon start to show it up by having cheaper games, better quality control, more incentive to use it such as free games every two weeks the list goes on.

if epic want your money they have to match or beat steam in these areas if steam wants your money they have to have the same features as epic