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Epic Games Store exploit allows you to play and keep a game forever, without even buying it

Helios

Member
The lovely part is you not noticing how self-defeating your argument is. So you are sure that the obscene, apple level 30% cut is OK, because obviously you are in business of in selling software to millions of people online, right?
Who's the one making the argument that store providers would be able to provide the same benefits for consumers at 12%? Does the burden of proof lie on me or on you?
Every single store that has offered less than the standard 30% has either come with severely less features (Epic is still missing critical features, had to revamp their roadmap and asked companies to help them implement basic features) or has died off.
Meanwhile GOG who also takes 30% barely made a profit last year
 
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Shifty

Member
I gave you a concrete example of "but everyone is doing it, so it must be reasonable" being apparently wrong, let me point it out again: roaming prices.
Using roaming charges as the basis for an argument trying to undermine the notion of 'industry standard' is nonsense. Not only is it anecdotal, it's also from a different industry and not as tightly-coupled to scummy practices as you seem to think.

Refund policies are also an 'industry standard', and are universally good for the consumer. Stop trying to erode the terminology to fit your argument and actually address the point.

In a context of software stores selling games, which other bigger Sweene is there, to pick up instead of Gabe's Valve?
Literally the entire rest of the videogame industry, see the IGN chart above.

Just because Tim's politic is laser-focused on Steam doesn't mean you get to ignore established facts and exclude everything else that isn't Epic Games Store.
 
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kraspkibble

Permabanned.
lol that's funny.

but even funnier? i still wouldn't use their dogshit client/store even if i got games for free. i know they do monthly games or something but eh...

they'd have to pay me to use it.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
I wish people who know how obscene 30% is would tell us what Valve's cost of doing business is. Give us those hard numbers you're using in your calculations so we have more to go on.
 

llien

Member
Meanwhile GOG who also takes 30% barely made a profit last years
You had to mention GOG, hadn't you?
A company that has:
1) Minuscule market share
1NjZQrm.png


It is painful to read the quote. 6 fucking millions per quarter of a FUCKING REVENUE.
2) Works on a very small subset of games
3) Invests into fixing old games, so that they could sell them (for a couple of bucks)

Let me tell you the obvious: if GOG com would sell 10 times more games (let's assume the pricing doesn't change), it's upkeep costs would barely change. Income, on the other hand...

Every single store that has offered less than the standard 30% has either come with severely less features (Epic is still missing critical features, had to revamp their roadmap and asked companies to help them implement basic features) or has died off.
I love "every store" reference to a, wait for it, single case and another single case.

Software distribution is so much cheaper than printing, shipping and then distributing actual disks (sharing yet another bit of revenue with other shops) I am appalled someone even dares discussing it.

Not to mention they giving away these consoles for free, right?
You don't seem to be someone who is arguing in a good faith, but let me give it a try nevertheless:

Most of the time they are subsidizing their consoles.
There is other investment, from pure advertisement of the platform, to exclusive, pricey and not necessarily profitable exclusive games.
Last, but not least, their distribution is largely physical, pricey.

Using roaming charges as the basis for an argument trying to undermine the notion of 'industry standard' is nonsense. Not only is it anecdotal, it's also from a different industry and not as tightly-coupled to scummy practices as you seem to think.
Orly? Let me go through the checklist used to prove "Apple cut is fine":
1) Everyone is doing it <= check, ain't it?

As for "industry being different" you gotta be kidding me. Just imagine how batshit crazy the whole cross-border business across wildly different countries is, with lot's of equipment to install, power and maintain on top of other things.

Roaming prices is a perfect example of "competition will bring prices down" not working.

IGN chart above.
Shows software stores?
 

Sentenza

Member
You don't seem to be someone who is arguing in a good faith, but let me give it a try nevertheless:
That's rich coming from you.
And rambling about "subsidizing consoles" is both pointless (why the hell should we or developers give a fuck?) and bullshit, anyway, since they have been selling their hardware for profit since past the early days of the PS3/360 era.
Not to mention Nintendo, that simply never sold at loss.
 

sol_bad

Member
Oh "do you have experience in selling software to millions of people online, to dare judge Gabe's uber-greateness, you worm", are you kidding me?

Do you have proof that Sony and Microsoft spend billions on console? Are they making a spaceship or something?

And if running a digital store front is so cheap and easy. Can you please explain why the Epic store feels like a store from 2001? Why has it barely been updated in 12 months? No basket, really?

Oh
And also, you saying Steam is a puny digital stores shows you have no fucking idea what you are talking about. Why doesn't Epic have all the same features on their puny store?
 

llien

Member
why the hell should we or developers give a fuck?
Why should we give a fuck to a financial aspect, when arguing about finances, indeed, you bloody clown. Welcome to my ignore list.

Answer the fucking question.
I cannot express how despicable the shit you are pushing looks from my POV.
How low can you go for Gabe? And why, on fucking planet Earth, would you go there?
Jesus.

I have never written a book, which doesn't stop me from judging books.
I have never filmed a movie, I'm still quite opinionated about them.

And neither did you. Which is fine, because you don't need to be a shoe maker, to understand that shoes do not fit. Just stop using that shit as a lame argument.

All the answers you want are there in the thread. From the very gog.com with laughable 6-9 million revenue, making it into black, to Sony/Microsoft being able to have major investment into consoles, tis' support later on, physical boxes sold to customers with a major cut of the revenue going to retailers. It works and it is obvious. What is not obvious where your wicked loyality to Gabe comes from.
 

Kadayi

Banned
I cannot express how despicable the shit you are pushing looks from my POV.

What shit? I'm just asking you to explain how it is that Valve could run Steam at 12‰

Less whine more facts please. Or are you going to put me on ignore also?
 
> This is illegal, don't do it
> Here's how you do it!

DSOGaming writing at it's best. I shit on EGS a lot, but I think this is the best thing they've done so far. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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johntown

Banned
If they keep adding great features like this I might switch to EGS. Thank you Tim Sweeney for having such a wonderful store with great features!

I wonder what other hidden features we are not aware of? Maybe plain text unprotected passwords and credit card information? Maybe there is even way to access their game storage and get all games for free?
 

Lister

Banned
Oh "do you have experience in selling software to millions of people online, to dare judge Gabe's uber-greateness, you worm", are you kidding me?

You don't have to be an expert in the industry to answer this as EPIC (the ones engaged in this 12% cut) itself has ALREADY said that 12% isn't viable long term.

You can bet the farm that if they reach whatever goal they are attempting to achieve, they will be raising that cut.

It's also hilarious that you think Steam is doing nothing with that cut but keeping it. Steam offers a better service than ANY of the console three anyway you slice it. Better community tools, better discovery tools, WAY better tooling, and payment services for developers to tackle on a world-wide market, something they just flat out couldn't do outside steam without publisher help.
 
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Shifty

Member
Orly? Let me go through the checklist used to prove "Apple cut is fine":
1) Everyone is doing it <= check, ain't it?

As for "industry being different" you gotta be kidding me. Just imagine how batshit crazy the whole cross-border business across wildly different countries is, with lot's of equipment to install, power and maintain on top of other things.

Roaming prices is a perfect example of "competition will bring prices down" not working.
Epic Store isn't competing by bringing prices down, it's competing by handing out money for exclusives while charging the consumer the 'industry standard' price. Outer Worlds is $59.99, just like any AAA game you would see elsewhere.

I'm all for consumer advocacy and not wanting to be ripped off by big corporations colluding to keep prices high, but arguing that EGS is some paragon standing against that does not work from the consumer angle, because we are still getting ripped off just the same.

Shows software stores?
The only stores on the list that offer physical instead of digital are Gamestop, Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart. I'm open to correction, but their 30% cut presumably applies on top of the 30% from the platform holder, unless there are extra multi-distribution deals to be brokered there.

Every store has logistics to maintain. Epic is no different, they just happen to have an extremely wealthy backer in Tencent that's willing to subsidize disruptive industry-side price cuts in so they can gain a foothold.
 
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llien

Member
EPIC (the ones engaged in this 12% cut) itself has ALREADY said that 12% isn't viable long term.
Citation needed.

Did you mistake it for some other thread:
 
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Lister

Banned
Citation needed.

Did you mistake it for some other thread:

Nope. Tim tweeted that they needed to mount charges on top of that 12% for any country that doesn't use credit cards, that's most developing countries and most Asian countries, and many European countries.

Alternate payment methods in those countries cost money. Steam eats that cost, EGS does not. so it's already not 12% for all purchases.

Also, Steam isn't 30% either, it's on a sliding scale based on revenue, down to 20% after 50 million in sales IIRC.
 

llien

Member
Nope. Tim tweeted that they needed to mount charges on top of that 12% for any country that doesn't use credit cards
Oh, I see. Out of context phrase.
Did they also mention how much "more" that will be? 18% or something?
 

Lister

Banned
Oh, I see. Out of context phrase.
Did they also mention how much "more" that will be? 18% or something?

I believe some providers charge as much as 15%, so quite a bit.

Steam actually spent a lot of money, partnering and investing in these types of other payment methods, including things like steam cards. All of that is now accessible to developers who would otherwise could never do that.

I think ultimately I care about what marketplaces do for me. What is their view towards consumers, what have they done and plan to do for me. It's also important what they do for developers small and large, but they are a secondary concern, from my point of view.

I think Steam has, and continues to walk that line in a way I'm mostly happy with - providing and improving features that I care about and benefit consumers, while trying to make the store accessible and providing features for developers that allow them to be successful. The store is open, and that's definitely both a good thing and a bad thing for devs, but it's only a good thing for us consumers, and Steam continues to try and improve things for devs on what is one of the biggest open gaming platforms on the planet.

EGS on the other hand has stated, loud and clear that consumers are NOT their priority and NEVER will be. Their main concern is the big AAA publishers and devs. They say they do not want to compete with Steam in terms of consumer features. They say they have no plans to ever do that. They basically want to be the place where big publishers can dump their latest IP with the minimum amount of bells and whistles for a larger cut of the profits.

That's well and good for them, but what do I get out of this deal?

Their current approach is also negatively impacting my gaming experience, and is ultimately unsustainable. They can't drop piles of money to keep games out of Steam indefinitely. And they can't cover all expenses with their 12% cut. In the end, even if they succeed, we end up with another walled garden store, where only established developers or popular games are even allowed in, where the cut will probably go back to 30% for the majority, while the big AAA's get a lower cut, and where features we are used to are absent, and worse, there will be games completely locked into that store and unavailable elsewhere.

Steam isn't perfect, but it cares about BOTH consumers and developers, and continues to improve and experiment. Hell, without them thing slike Linux gaming wouldn't exist. My main complaint with them is that they refuse to invest in marketing. I can't fathom why, it's something that would have benefitted Steam, the developers on Steam AND the platform overall, but no, they can't be arsed. This is also the main difference between them and other big marketplaces. Those other guys advertise.
 
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I was hoping you'd say exactly this.


Yep, Valve is super evil and greedy simply practicing the INDUSTRY STANDARD

LMAO “INDUSTRY STANDARD” you poptart. People think its greedy for apple and google too. And they actually sell hardware for their platform. Anyways you’ll can keep licking Valves pipes. Everyone else can keep not giving a f where they buy their games from.
 
LMAO “INDUSTRY STANDARD” you poptart. People think its greedy for apple and google too. And they actually sell hardware for their platform. Anyways you’ll can keep licking Valves pipes. Everyone else can keep not giving a f where they buy their games from.
That's because none of the armchair entrepreneur savants around here have ever run or been involved in running a business. They make a lot and they also expend a lot, it's not greedy, it's business and in order to continue doing business you need a healthy level of profit for it to be sustainable.

Is EGS sustainable? Not by any stretch of the imagination, it's a penetration model and nothing more.
 

llien

Member
DynamiteCop! DynamiteCop!
Let me mark parts of your statement coming from south east part of your body with red:

"That's because none of the armchair entrepreneur savants around here have ever run or been involved in running a business. They make a lot and they also expend a lot, it's not greedy, it's business and in order to continue doing business you need a healthy level of profit for it to be sustainable.

Is EGS sustainable? Not by any stretch of the imagination, it's a penetration model and nothing more. "


I believe some providers charge as much as 15%, so quite a bit.
How evil of Epic to not cover it with their 12% cut, greedy motherfuckers!
I'm outraged!!!

What is their view towards consumers, what have they done and plan to do for me.
1) Reducing payment processing price is in the interest of any company and comes naturally, with lower prices, as it gets bigger.
2) There is no abstract "you" who is preset globally on this planet and it is a totally different argument..

EGS on the other hand has stated, loud and clear that consumers are NOT their priority and NEVER will be.
This is level of BS I have only seen coming from allegedly paid nvidia shills.
I'm missing painting of Gabe tearing his shirt apart to comfort poor people with his left hand, while wielding a sword and fighting the evils of this planet with his right. Oh, and perhaps we can put his legs to a good use too. He could be coding Half Life 3 with his toes, but, obviously, given his difficult situation, not being able to finish it any time soon, not because Valve is a lazy fat company with monopolist powers, but because Gabe is so good and cares about the poor so much.

In the end, even if they succeed, we end up with another walled garden store, where only established developers or popular games are even allowed in
Why, on fucking planet Earth, would they limit number of developers who could sell on their platform?

If they succeed, we can get into situation when developers of the game will NOT have to cede 30% of revenue to a distributor, reducing that figure to 12%. That is all what it is about. And all the talk about "features" of a bloody puny online software store, is freaking annoying.
 
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DynamiteCop! DynamiteCop!
Let me mark parts of your statement coming from south east part of your body with red:

"That's because none of the armchair entrepreneur savants around here have ever run or been involved in running a business. They make a lot and they also expend a lot, it's not greedy, it's business and in order to continue doing business you need a healthy level of profit for it to be sustainable.

Is EGS sustainable? Not by any stretch of the imagination, it's a penetration model and nothing more. "
You have no clue what you're talking about.
 

Phase

Member
Shit I only open the launcher occasionally to grab the free games. Haven't paid one cent, and it'll stay that way after they abandoned Unreal Tournament.
 
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if GOG com would sell 10 times more games (let's assume the pricing doesn't change), it's upkeep costs would barely change.
Wrong. Very...very...fucking wrong...
Their bandwidth costs would increase tenfold. Oh...didn't you know? There's no such thing as an unlimited plan in the enterprise sphere; you pay for every single individual GB. They'd also need to invest into more server locations to handle this sudden influx of traffic on their CDNs. Each of those locations would need...yup...separate internet connections...which would push the networking bill up even higher.
 

llien

Member
You have no clue what you're talking about.
Yeah. That is what you are supposed to say, when asked about receipts for your unsubstantiated claims.

Their bandwidth costs would increase tenfold
That's not how pricing works but let's assume it is true.

They'd also need to invest into more server locations to handle this sudden influx of traffic on their CDNs. Each of those locations would need...yup...separate internet connections...which would push the networking bill up even higher.
And that's not how that stuff works either (lol at "separate internet connection")
Price would be higher, but it would be unlikely to be proportionally higher.

But you are missing the main point: those costs are only a small part of the gog.com's upkeep.
Their staff would barely need to change.
Costs of developing software they run on their servers, gog.com client, would not change at all.
Costs of decorating games on their site won't change.
Costs into fixing old games so that they can run on windows 10 would not change at all.
 
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That's not how pricing works
That's exactly how the pricing works. I've worked in the IT industry, within a company that also provided ISP services, domain registration and hosting, etc. They milk companies for every penny they can...because they know the companies can (and will) pay.
And that's not how that stuff works either (lol at "separate internet connection")
Yes. Separate locations need separate network connections. Are you retarded?
Their staff would barely need to change.
They would need to hire more staff to man the new server locations.
 
Yeah. That is what you are supposed to say, when asked about receipts for your unsubstantiated claims.
Sweeney already said it's not sustainable as is, are you high or something? This is well known, he tweeted about it. He's running a penetration model losing tons of money trying to get it off the ground, you know fuck all about business.
 

lyan

Member
There is DRM, but it's either extremely intrusive or broken.
Not the same as GOG.
There isn't a store-bound one far as I'm aware.
You can do the same to steam games if the developer choose not to implement the steam drm which is sometimes seen with older unity games or some free games.
 

llien

Member
That's exactly how the pricing works. I've worked in the IT industry, within a company that also provided ISP services, domain registration and hosting, etc. They milk companies for every penny they can...because they know the companies can (and will) pay.
Yeah, cool.
I work on the other side.
And no, that's not how big players pay and in general, price per GB drops as you go for higher buckets.

Yes. Separate locations need separate network connections. Are you retarded?
Separate "locations" is "dear cloud provider, I want this shit to be hosted in NA", "dear cloud provider, and that shit please in EU". What is the "network connection"? Uh.
CDN would cover typical needs of "multiple locations" with original servers residing in only one zone, with only bizarre locations like North Korea being excluded (and special handling for China).
"network connections" hell yeah...

They would need to hire more staff to man the new server locations.
No they wouldn't, it is B2B activity for a while, you get whatever resources you need from someone who takes care of infrastructure for you..

said it's not sustainable as is
"We can't have 12% cut in markets with laughable GDP per capita where transaction processing costs 15%".
"He said his business model is not sustainable!!!!!! He might be losing trillions of bucks!!!"
It would be funny, if it wasn't so scary at this point.
 
Separate "locations" is "dear cloud provider, I want this shit to be hosted in NA", "dear cloud provider, and that shit please in EU". What is the "network connection"? Uh.
CDN would cover typical needs of "multiple locations" with original servers residing in only one zone, with only bizarre locations like North Korea being excluded (and special handling for China).
"network connections" hell yeah...

No they wouldn't, it is B2B activity for a while, you get whatever resources you need from someone who takes care of infrastructure for you..
That's only true if you're not hosting your own shit, as many of the big players do. So tell me...do you work at GOG? Because if you don't...
 

llien

Member
That's only true if you're not hosting your own shit, as many of the big players do.

Like, let me pick up a company, mmm, zalando.de, fashion shop with revenue in billions.. Mm, hold on, they stopped doing it years ago and moved to amazon's cloud (not the cheapest of them all, mind you).
Oh, or like countless <something>24.de... but wait, the same story.

Or, last, but not least, fucking WhatsApp, that served 500'000'000 active customers with staff of 50. Remind me, how many "geo locations" were covered?

Cloud popularity is on the rise exactly because it is CHEAPER and FASTER than to keep your own staff looking after infrastructure. (let alone if you actually buy infrastructure and not platform/services, which most customers actively do) And if you get a spike of customers, because of whatever, for an hour, a day, or weeks, hey, that's more revenue and a bit higher costs, but your servers don't crash and your business doesn't follow. A win-win.
 
Like, let me pick up a company, mmm, zalando.de, fashion shop with revenue in billions.. Mm, hold on, they stopped doing it years ago and moved to amazon's cloud (not the cheapest of them all, mind you).
Oh, or like countless <something>24.de... but wait, the same story.

Or, last, but not least, fucking WhatsApp, that served 500'000'000 active customers with staff of 50. Remind me, how many "geo locations" were covered?

Cloud popularity is on the rise exactly because it is CHEAPER and FASTER than to keep your own staff looking after infrastructure. (let alone if you actually buy infrastructure and not platform/services, which most customers actively do) And if you get a spike of customers, because of whatever, for an hour, a day, or weeks, hey, that's more revenue and a bit higher costs, but your servers don't crash and your business doesn't follow. A win-win.
On the rise, yes. It's not at complete saturation yet...not to mention the biggest players are the CDNs, who have shit of their own to host and they absolutely have to host it themselves, unless they're going to pay another CDN? Regardless...do GOG use a cloud provider? Because if you don't actually know whether or not they do then it's kind of a null point to make. Even if they do...they still have to pay more.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
So, it does not have a super-strict DRM. The "exploit" is just plain old piracy. Guess what, if you use someone's GOG account you can also download their GOG games and keep them. It's still piracy.
 
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