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[nani17]

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Console wars are a thing of the past. The new war is Epic Games Store vs. Steam, and it could get bloody. For years Steam has been stuck in a "damned if you do damned if you don't" situation about whether to open the flood gates to any and all games, or to police the storefront. Initially, Steam was a gatekeeper that decided which games went on the platform. Over time this changed, mostly thanks to the now defunct Steam Greenlight. At the moment, if you pay a small fee, you can get your game on the storefront, though Steam still exercise its power and pull a game every once in awhile due to controversy. There's people yelling for it to not regulate, and then there's people screaming at it to regulate. It can't win.

That said, over the past few years, Steam has mostly kept its hands off, letting countless horrible, illegal, and sometimes repulsive games make it onto the platform. And as a result, Steam has built quite the reputation for being a storefront propped up on 95 percent of garbage

On the other side of the coin, the new Epic Games Store is tailoring its storefront, but eventually it wants to open the gates up wider. However, that doesn't mean it's going to not regulate like Steam has.

Recently, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was asked by PC Gamer how the company will go about regulation. He responded as follows:

"We'll have a quality standard that doesn't accept crappy games," said Sweeney. "We'll accept reasonably good quality games, of any scale, whether small indie games to huge triple-A games, and we'll take everything up to, like, an R-rated movie or an M-rated game. A GTA game would be fine to us, but Epic's not going to distribute porn games or bloatware or asset flips, or any sort of thing that's meant to shock players. The PC's an open platform and if we don't distribute it in our store you can still reach consumers directly."

For those that don't know: in addition to housing every great PC game, Steam is known to be a haven of porn-esq experiences, asset flips, and just downright terrible games. Sweeney doesn't outright call Steam out while speaking to PC Gamer, but it's fairly obvious that there's a jab there.

Sweeney also doesn't divulge any details on how it will police its storefront, though he notes it won't be what it's like on consoles, which are played by humans before they are approved. But there will be people making judgment calls in some capacity.

 

[Stuart360]

Gamers - 'we wont accept crappy launchers'

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

That's some nasty reverse-psychology PR right there.

For someone who openly criticized Microsoft, he sure does love to follow their playbook. This is Aaron Greenburg-tier.

 

[Chairman Tickles]

The brain-dead implication being that choice is bad. That anything less than a front-loaded AAA title is not worth playing. Epic is trash.

 

[angelic]

They all say this at the start. Steam did.

 

[Gamezone]

That's some nasty reverse-psychology PR right there.

For someone who openly criticized Microsoft, he sure does love to follow their playbook. This is Aaron Greenburg-tier.

Yet people buy games from Blizzard, Uplay, Origin and Bethesda.

 

[Husky]

"We won't accept crappy games."
Buys exclusivity to three David Cage games

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

"We won't accept crappy games."
Buys exclusivity to three David Cage games

The memes write themselves.

Developers, we really are the worst of us.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

And I would ask Sweeney, "Crappy according to who?"

 

[sol_bad]

So you're not offering more choice for developers across the board?

 

[ethomaz]

If they quality control are better than Steam then it is a big step forward.

Now work in the others issues.

 

[Scopa]

Tim Sweeney has a history of saying stupid things.

 

[peronmls]

Get out of here. They are so far up their own asses.

 

[CuNi]

We are Epic!
We want to help the PC Industry to have competition! But only on our Store.
We want to help and support the developers! But only those that we actually like and think are good!
We want to do something for the gamers! But again only on our store, if you plan on buying somewhere else, HAHA good luck, we bought that game.
We want to help developers get in touch with the community! Of course by letting the developer chose if he wants a forum or review system.. wouldn't want shitty game to get review bombed, right?

We are Epic!...

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

Dude definitely spends too much time sniffing his own farts.

 

[KyoZz]

Isn't Fortnite on the Epic Store ?

 

[JimboJones]

Getting flash backs to Nintendos ill fated Dream team bollocks on the n64

 

[JimmyJones]

Epic need to get Gears of War 1 on PC. When I saw the MCC Steam announcement, I immediately though about how amazing a GoW multiplayer revival would be. Get the finger out Epic!

 

[lukilladog]

And I wont accept crappy anti competitive practices like paid exclusives.

 

[Shifty]

Sick burn, Tim.

Now show me a library that isn't built on moneyhats.

 

[5secondrulesucks]

the guy from epic sucks and whoever wrote that crappy article sucks

 

[Nacery]

Say what you want but some crappy games are actually great. And if you don't want porn games just exclude them from the discovery filter.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Tim Sweeney has a history of saying stupid things.

Yup and all this fortnight/tencent money is making it worse.

I think fortnite is a crappy game Tim ...

 

[Codes 208]

I understand what he means but he could have worded it so much better. A crappy game is a bit subjective to an individual’s taste and preference. Like there’s so many (myself included) who’ll tell you that have halo 5 is garbage even though at worst it’s more average than anything.

 

[Nacery]

Also, what is a crappy games and how sex games will be treated? Hatoful boyfriend surely could be considered a crappy games as a lot of Renpy VN's but me and my GF really love them. The same goes for games like Ladykiller on a binding (one of the games that made Steam to change the way they approached sex themes) and I really liked it.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Gamers - 'we wont accept crappy launchers'

First thing on my mind coming into this thread. GAF never disappoints. ^_^

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

I wished they stfu.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

Gamers - 'we wont accept crappy launchers'

I have to side with epic games store

Steam is unuseable. because of the large amount of trash.

 

[Linkdevivo]

Good. This is great for gamers. Having a Quality threshold can only mean games have to get better to be on the platform. High tide raises all ships and the consumer gets better products. Capitalism at its finest.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Well they can't because their PoS store doesn't have user reviews and returns are apparently really limited.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

What I heard Epic Game Store boss say in my head: "We aren't willing to moneyhat every single game in existence"

 

[Zephir]

No asset flips and no broken, awful taste games is a good promise

We'll see if they can keep it...

 

[Froschi]

I vividly remember Valve saying the exact same thing when Steam launched. Give it time.

 

[-MD-]

"We won't accept crappy games."
Buys exclusivity to three David Cage games

Gotem

 

[Dontero]

And who decodes what is crappy game ?

Imho velve is right. It is not store jpb to promote games. You as de eloper either need to pay up or create community around game.

 

[Shadowcoust]

Just stop talking for a bit and get someone to start working on the platform's key functionalities, please. At least attempt to convince us that it's a legitimate space and experience for gamers.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

Gotem

i dont think he can actually pay enough money for sony to give him those

i think sony is just experimenting releasing exclusives on pc. steam is too overcrowded to release on. sony is a big company and small amounts of money like paying the publishing fees is nothing to them

 

[Orta]

I signed up for that piece of shit last night. Inputted email and password, told me password was wrong. Requested an Epic generated one, inputted it, told me it was wrong.

Something either works first time or it doesn't at all so frankly Epic and their crappy launcher can fuck off.

 

[Woo-Fu]

For someone who openly criticized Microsoft, he sure does love to follow their playbook. This is Aaron Greenburg-tier.

Has a bit of Trump to it as well, everything everybody else does is bad for the industry right up until Epic does it and then it is the best thing since sliced bread.

 

[Holammer]

We need a good word to replace 'Epic', I'm starting to cringe when I hear it these days.

 

[Virex]

I won’t accept Chinese Government Spyware on my PC

 

[Azurro]

The brain-dead implication being that choice is bad. That anything less than a front-loaded AAA title is not worth playing. Epic is trash.

"We won't accept crappy games."
Buys exclusivity to three David Cage games

Tim Sweeney has a history of saying stupid things.

These comments are being disingenuous, it's quite clear what the Epic guy means. The hate about an extra icon on the desktop makes people say silly things. A David Cage game, regardless of your opinion of him has a baseline quality compared to asset flips.

It's actually a good approach, no matter the level of investment that the type of product that will be on the platform is going to be a quality title. I'd be quite confident in saying Steam is a repository of garbage titles, I wouldn't be surprised if 90% of the library is software garbage.

 

[CatCouch]

Not liking this stance much, particularly the way porn games are lumped in with "terrible" and "asset flip" games. Games with adult sexual content are not something I want to see viewed as an unwelcome part of gaming.

I will not be shocked if I learn Epic blocks or requires censorship for some M rated Japanese games.

 

[Bl@de]

Yes master Sweeney. Decide for me what is good. For I am a stupid consumer who doesn't know quality... Choice is bad!

 

[Dunki]

I have to side with epic games store

Steam is unuseable. because of the large amount of trash.

Only when you seek for them. I have not much trash on the storefront. Maybe just do these recomendations queues. They are really helping filtering out games you will not like and then they will also not be displayed on the storefront.

 

[danielberg]

I think epic confuses the average costumer with some kind of angry commie youtuber that cant tell obvious asset flips from actual games apart or rather chooses not to so he can complain about it in shitty youtube videos.

 

[Burger]

Bah I don't really give a shit. I've purchased both Metro and Satisfactory on the Epic Store and they are both great games. I can't imagine they would be much different if they were on Steam. Whole thing is a bunch of entitled manchildren demanding things they have no right to.

 

[CyRuZ]

He not only look like a weasel.

 

[Ozymandias013]

Well to be fair Steam is full of garbage games like that rape game they had.

 

[Screamer-RSA]

Can’t wait for all the yelling and knashing of teeth of all these gaming “jounalist” when Epic decides their indie buddy’s game is “crappy”

Imagine Epic saying no to Chelsea Van Valkenberg’s next scam oops I mean game.