• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Gearbox confirms Borderlands 3 launches on September 13, 2019; Epic Games Store exclusive

Kadayi

Banned
Yeah, you're spewing this bullshit around again. I already told you I used steam enough to know how much is a piece of crap.

Ok let's see: -

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Fuz77

At the time of writing, 8 years on Steam. last online 22 days ago. Level 5 and 12 games owned in total. No achievements, 1 screenshot.

I mean what does people need beside friend list?

It's not about need, it's about want. If people are used to certain features, why should they settle for less?
 
Last edited:

Teslerum

Member
So, Steam has a monopoly too? They have products not available on other stores. MS, Sony, and Nintendo as well. Is everyone their own little monopoly? That doesn't make any sense.

Yes, they are. Congratulations!

And not to spoil the surprise, but a whole of people may have already stated why they are personally ok with some examples and not ok with others.

Hint: This time its about ethics!

Edit: To be less snarky, from that point on its about HOW you conduct your business. And that is Epics failure for reasons already stated a hundred times in these threads, which sadly often devolve into vitrol.
Everything has a reason.

Edit2: I've already given you a sourced definition and reason. Your own close-mindedness I can't change.
 
Last edited:
Yes, they are. Congratulations!

And not to spoil the surprise, but a whole of people may have already stated why they are personally ok with some examples and not ok with others.

Hint: This time its about ethics!
That's not quite what a monopoly is.
 
Yes, they are. Congratulations!

And not to spoil the surprise, but a whole of people may have already stated why they are personally ok with some examples and not ok with others.

Hint: This time its about ethics!

Edit: To be less snarky, from that point on its about HOW you conduct your business. And that is Epics failure for reasons already stated a hundred times in these threads, which sadly often devolve into vitrol.
Everything has a reason.

Edit2: I've already given you a sourced definition and reason. Your own close-mindedness I can't change.
Has nothing to do with "close-mindedness". It's business 101. It's not a subjective topic, as you are using your own interpretation. This is objective and factual. You don't get to choose your own details of a monopoly. One game, or even several, does not constitute as a monopoly. Epic would have to own almost all of the market, which they do not. Not even close. You can buy video games in many different places. Stores offer different options and some of those include exclusives. That in no way constitutes a monopoly.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp

"A monopoly refers to a sector or industry dominated by one corporation, firm or entity. Monopolies can be considered an extreme result of free-market capitalism in that absent any restriction or restraints, a single company or group becomes large enough to own all or nearly all of the market (goods, supplies, commodities, infrastructure and assets) for a particular type of product or service. Antitrustlaws and regulations are put in place to discourage monopolistic operations – protecting consumers, prohibiting practices that restrain trade and ensuring a marketplace remains open and competitive. "Monopoly" can also be used to mean the entity that has total or near-total control of a market."
 

Teslerum

Member
Has nothing to do with "close-mindedness". It's business 101. It's not a subjective topic, as you are using your own interpretation. This is objective and factual. You don't get to choose your own details of a monopoly. One game, or even several, does not constitute as a monopoly. Epic would have to own almost all of the market, which they do not. Not even close. You can buy video games in many different places. Stores offer different options and some of those include exclusives. That in no way constitutes a monopoly.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp

"A monopoly refers to a sector or industry dominated by one corporation, firm or entity. Monopolies can be considered an extreme result of free-market capitalism in that absent any restriction or restraints, a single company or group becomes large enough to own all or nearly all of the market (goods, supplies, commodities, infrastructure and assets) for a particular type of product or service. Antitrustlaws and regulations are put in place to discourage monopolistic operations – protecting consumers, prohibiting practices that restrain trade and ensuring a marketplace remains open and competitive. "Monopoly" can also be used to mean the entity that has total or near-total control of a market."

for a particular type of product or service.

:messenger_ok:

Again theres a difference between goods that do the same thing and can thus be easily replaced (milk, phones, any service that offers the same service like grooming your hair) and products that are unique in and off themselves. Movies again for example. Sure they compete among each other, but all of them are unique. Milk is Milk, regardless which brand and thus easily replacable.

For example: Imagine Avengers: Endgame is only shown in one theatre worldwide and the theater owner restricts access. He has, by definition, a monopoly on it. Sure, I can go watch Alita: Battle Angel. But, after watching Alita I still haven't consumed anything close to Avengers: Endgame. And unless we're talking straight up clones, same applies for videogames.
 
Last edited:
:messenger_ok:

Again theres a difference between goods that do the same thing and can thus be easily replaced (milk, phones, any service that offers the same service like grooming your hair) and products that are unique in and off themselves. Movies again for example. Sure they compete among each other, but all of them are unique. Milk is Milk, regardless which brand and thus easily replacable.

For example: Imagine Avengers: Endgame is only shown in one theatre worldwide and the theater owner restricts access. He has, by definition, a monopoly on it. Sure, I can go watch Alita: Battle Angel. But, after watching Alita I still haven't consumed Avengers: Endgame. And unless we're talking straight up clones, same applies for videogames.
I understand your point, but it's not a monopoly. It's an exclusive from a competitor. A monopoly implies possible court intervention. Epic is not close to having a monopoly. Steam was more close to an actual monopoly than anyone, but still not a monopoly.
 

Teslerum

Member
I understand your point, but it's not a monopoly. It's an exclusive from a competitor. A monopoly implies possible court intervention. Epic is not close to having a monopoly. Steam was more close to an actual monopoly than anyone, but still not a monopoly.

It doesn't as a monopoly isn't inherently something bad. We generally just assume so, because of the negativity and strong regulation attached to it.

https://www.economicshelp.org/microessays/markets/advantages-monopoly/

That's where ethics enter in the whole conversation, because monopolies are obviously easily exploited
(And were so for a long time in a lot of countries) The act of HOW you conduct your business. And at least on that front Epics actions are... questionable for a variety of reasons to a lot of people. I

That said. A lot of those questions arose from how Epic approached the whole thing, they can still right the ship even if it takes some time. Expanding on resellers, providing services, declaring exclusives in advance (even better focusing on supporting indies with said money),,,,,

Sadly, at the moment its a hate mob where its two front were getting more extrem by the minute. So, while I personally also boycott the Epic Store for now (mainly due to their approach to PR/customer second) I do hope the Epic Store works out as it should have been.
 
Last edited:

Kenpachii

Member
It doesn't as a monopoly isn't inherently something bad. We generally just assume so, because of the negativity and strong regulation attached to it.

https://www.economicshelp.org/microessays/markets/advantages-monopoly/

That's where ethics enter in the whole conversation, because monopolies are obviously easily exploited
(And were so for a long time in a lot of countries) The act of HOW you conduct your business. And at least on that front Epics actions are... questionable for a variety of reasons to a lot of people. I

That said. A lot of those questions arose from how Epic approached the whole thing, they can still right the ship even if it takes some time. Expanding on resellers, providing services, declaring exclusives in advance (even better focusing on supporting indies with said money),,,,,

Sadly, at the moment its a hate mob where its two front were getting more extrem by the minute. So, while I personally also boycott the Epic Store (mainly due to their approach to PR/customer second) I do hope the Epic Store works out as it should have been.

Not like epic has a choice. They are following exactly what steam did and steam has a working model. Epic has the connections in china already from the get go with it as PC games will be more and more moving towards China's need focus anyway. They are in a good spot.

Also why would epic announce it in advance?. Now they see through pre-orders what is selling and what is not. Easier to make a deal and more successful deals with it.
 

Tesseract

Banned
i think people are forgetting that steam is like 15 years old and basically saved pc gaming from the piracy abyss and shored up support from devs at a time when most publishers were abandoning the platform

and that's just the tip of the iceberg

they earned their shit
 
Steam is important. No doubt. But I'm not sure what that earns them now.

Blockbuster was a really important business but also a case study for how market evolution can kill an innovator.
 

Codes 208

Member
People here are complaining about exclusivity and some admitting to piracy


And I’m just sitting here masturbating silently pre-ordering the game on Xbox.
 
Last edited:

Tesseract

Banned
Steam is important. No doubt. But I'm not sure what that earns them now.

Blockbuster was a really important business but also a case study for how market evolution can kill an innovator.

this is true, they're important for a time

they need to keep innovating and i have no doubt they will

this is VALVE we're talking about, the cream of the fucking crop
 

Kadayi

Banned
Dude doesn't know when to zip it, my god.

Why does HL3 need to be involved for him to use 'all his power and influence' to make Steam happen? Just chatting shit :messenger_expressionless:

Yeah, I didn't get the point of the tweet either. HL3 isn't going to magically make Seam any more popular than it already is, because if you played HL2, then you already have a Steam account. I guess Pitchford is trying to look less dickish and to be fair the EGS deal is undoubtedly a publisher decision at the end of the day, but instead, he just comes across as patronising.
 
Yeah, I didn't get the point of the tweet either. HL3 isn't going to magically make Seam any more popular than it already is, because if you played HL2, then you already have a Steam account. I guess Pitchford is trying to look less dickish and to be fair the EGS deal is undoubtedly a publisher decision at the end of the day, but instead, he just comes across as patronising.

He looks worse, because he's literally admitting "I didn't do all that I could to stop this" right after making the much more PR friendly statement "hey, this was out of our hands." Why would you admit that? This was pointless.

Also:

 
Last edited:

MMaRsu

Banned
i think people are forgetting that steam is like 15 years old and basically saved pc gaming from the piracy abyss and shored up support from devs at a time when most publishers were abandoning the platform

and that's just the tip of the iceberg

they earned their shit

this.
 
Good will. Earned trust. Longevity....
All hallow words of shaken competition. Same could describe blockbuster, Sears, circuit city, and soon to be gamestop.
 


Lol what?! Who in their right mind is "happy" being forced to shop at certain stores?

I swear, Pitchford is one of the densest people in the gaming industry. His twitter opinions and hot takes are consistently horrible. Not sure why anybody would take him seriously after the whole USB 'camgirl' stick debacle, embezzling money, loosing millions on a credit card without even noticing it and this:

“It’s a woman who is masturbating,” Pitchford said, “and when she has some experience that appears as if she’s having an orgasm, a huge amount of fluid comes out of her vagina.” “This is not a sex worker—this is a fucking magician,” he added, saying he had purchased one of her videos and put it on the USB stick.

How that guy managed to become the CEO of a big software company is simply beyond me.
 

Paasei

Member
Guess I am one of the very few people on earth who doesn't really care about Borderlands to begin with.
 


But you DO deserve it, and that's the point! This isn't "victim blaming," because you're not the victim here.

And you are not a child, although you may act like one, so that comparison doesn't quite work. Review bombing older games isn't something that I would do, but it's still SOMETHING that gives a voice to upset customers, the same sort of customers that Epic, and Netflix, and Rotten Tomatoes are only too happy to silence in anyway they can.
 

-hal-

Member
Calling out Steam on Twitter for "allowing" users to review your game in a way you believe to be unfair is completely unprofessional, reactionary, and provocational. He's simply trying to position himself and his partners into the role of the victim.

That's some pretty weak shit, but completely in character with the kind of nonsense he spouts publicly. All of the people that have worked hard on Borderlands 3 have to be face-palming every time he opens his mouth. How he is allowed to speak for the company I will never know.
 
But you DO deserve it, and that's the point! This isn't "victim blaming," because you're not the victim here.

And you are not a child, although you may act like one, so that comparison doesn't quite work. Review bombing older games isn't something that I would do, but it's still SOMETHING that gives a voice to upset customers, the same sort of customers that Epic, and Netflix, and Rotten Tomatoes are only too happy to silence in anyway they can.
Interesting high ground you're on when you are advocating lying and fabricating false reviews.
 
Interesting high ground you're on when you are advocating lying and fabricating false reviews.

Nobody for a moment thinks that those reviews are genuine, and again, Steam doesn't factor them into the review score. You can also see reviews by date and know exactly why game reviews dropped.

Again, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't review a game I never played, and I wouldn't review an older game because I was mad the new game that I wanted to "review" wasn't on the service for me to review it. But I understand why it happens, and online services such as Epic, Netflix, and Rotten Tomatoes doing everything they can to silence customers and fans is something I disagree with far more.

"Love Borderlands 2, hate gearbox for making the third game an Epic exclusive. One star."

Is far from "advocating lying and fabricating false reviews." This is a blip on the radar for the Steam reviews of this game. A little over 2500 people who negatively reviewed this game in the past 4 days to feel like they had some sort of voice here, concerning a game that has 92,000 reviews, and a massive company is using those 2500 voices paint themselves as a victim.

I don't buy buy it, and neither should you.

But I will buy Borderlands 3, specifically on console.
 

azz0r

Banned
I don't get what peoples deal is with having it on the Epic Store. I must be one of the few that doesn't care if I have to have 1 extra launcher to play a game I want to play.
I don't agree with Epics business practises, I don't think their systems are secure and I definitely don't trust then to maintain my game catalogue indefinitely.

No thank you.
 

Shifty

Member
Oh my god why do they keep letting Pitchford open his big mouth.

Swinging from "gimme dat HL3 gaben lmao" to "steam is doing nothing about this misuse* so i'm actually glad 2K limited us to EGS" is beyond stupidity.

*Not only does Steam have tools to manage this, but Gearbox used them to flag 4000 or so 'off topic' reviews in the last few days.

(And the 'victim blaming' thing is buzzword nonsense. Thank you so much twitter for continuing to make more and more of our language meaningless.)
 
Last edited:

Kadayi

Banned
It seems PC players want a monopoly for steam

1*p-wcR8W3W2LKXKqYLQeaxg.gif


Yeah competition is always good , and steam has dominated for far to long

1*p-wcR8W3W2LKXKqYLQeaxg.gif
 
Competition is good but you can’t blame the people that has a massive library on one launcher. And apparently having 2-3 launchers is alright but one extra is ooohhhh that’s too much fuck you. Eh
Personally my limit is 2 launchers one ridded with DRM and one without, take a guess which ones i am referring too
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
So much hyperbole in this thread. Steam never had a monopoly and never will. Anybody who wants to can self-distribute, yesterday, today, and/or tomorrow. Don't want to self-distribute and don't want to partner with Steam? Fine, partner with any other publisher/distributor. There are multiple options, stop pretending that there aren't, stop pretending that Steam can somehow magically prevent you from using any of them.

Epic buying exclusives isn't "preventing Steam from being a monopoly." It is an attempt to give Epic one, lol.

It also isn't the sort of competition that is good for the customer. Competition that is good for the customer is if the games are on multiple distribution platforms and the consumer can vote with their wallet for whichever platform they feel is best.
 
Last edited:

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
So much hyperbole in this thread. Steam never had a monopoly and never will. Anybody who wants to can self-distribute, yesterday, today, and/or tomorrow. Don't want to self-distribute and don't want to partner with Steam? Fine, partner with any other publisher/distributor. There are multiple options, stop pretending that there aren't, stop pretending that Steam can somehow magically prevent you from using any of them.

Epic buying exclusives isn't "preventing Steam from being a monopoly." It is an attempt to give Epic one, lol.

It also isn't the sort of competition that is good for the customer. Competition that is good for the customer is if the games are on multiple distribution platforms and the consumer can vote with their wallet for whichever platform they feel is best.

Stop being delusional.
Steam was the only normal way for indie devs to reach a proper platform for a good long time.
Epic is a blessing for pc gamers if only to kick start steam back into progress,

Also ffs stop pretending EPIC will magically attract steam users with 100+ game collections tied to that platform.
It needs to be aggressive. And lure users with amazing timed exclusives.

And do you think those 2 weekly free games just magically happen to be free for epic?
They need users to build a proper game collection so they are stuck to the platform like steam.



Is it fair for consumers? NO
Do they need to do this? YES
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom