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Penny Arcade - Comic - Being An Account Of The Conflict
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Penny Arcade - Comic - Being An Account Of The Conflict
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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There are some concerns over account security with Epic that aren't entirely unwarranted. I use their two-step authentication thinger, and haven't had any issues, however. Even though people will be refunded, it is a pretty big dick move to sell preorders on steam and then decide "no, nevermind" a couple weeks out from launch, though.
Also, thanks for adding "foofaraw" to my vocabulary. I instantly like that word.
It's another marketplace. It's another account with another password. It's another storefront that has my email, my personal information, and potentially my credit card information.
It's exhausting more than anything. I feel like Epic is putting the burden of making THEIR service a success on me, instead of allowing us to buy their games in our market of choice, but making their market so irresistibly attractive that I'm happy to have another account with another password, sharing my personal information, and handing over my credit card. I'm the one forced to jump the hurdles for to hand over money for a game, when I feel like the onus should be on them to tempt me so delectably to hand over my money.
I've got the Epic Launcher. I originally got it and originally made an Epic account because I was farting around with the Unreal Engine editor.
And now they're trying to compete with Steam. Nothing wrong with competition per se, but I just want all my games on Steam. I've already sworn eternal allegiance to the Newell and offered him my firstborn child. And now we've got these barbarous northerners who are waging a digital war that is causing me minor inconvenience because now my games list is split.
A parallel might (?) be drawn with the recent Balkanization of content streaming services. It's no longer 'enough' to just have Netflix, now you have to choose among various warring camps (Hulu! VDR! Youtube TV!) battling over exclusive show rights and generating in-house premium content. Game publishers have realized they want the marketing and visibility that content platforms give their stuff, and it becomes a market share battle.
The PC game sphere is just late to this show (going by this narrative).
I have
*checks*
Four different game launchers on my computer. Not counting Discord, yet. I would much rather just have the one.
But then I changed my mind. I'm in favor of taking a big bite out of steam for the same reasons as I would be taking a big bite out of Apple. Steam's software and website have suffered in much the same way as iTunes. They didn't need to fix longstanding bugs or add features (or in the case of iTunes, burn their software down and rebuild it from the ground up) because why bother when you're (practically) the only shop in town?
Their forum doesn't even has the ability to block specific users. And it's definitely a site that needs it.
Steam, Origin, Blizzard annnd.... the Microsoft Store or whatever that was?
I agree it's not a perfect analogy. But you can and should compare them to draw useful conclusions, I think. The existence of marginal or related markets (like cable) shouldn't make you discard the conversation any more than the existence of self-published indie games.
It's important to note that video streaming "marginal" markets (ie. sketchy pirate streams and the like) can't really be argued to have any serious effect on the majority of consumers, or the business practices that effect the mainstream. Companies would prefer to get your money then not naturally but big anti-pirating efforts aren't in the spotlight right now because the options are barely worth it to the average consumer of streaming content.
For me: Steam, GOG.com, Epic and Arc (for Neverwinter).
I install other launchers when a game needs it (which isn't often) and uninstall when I finish the game. I don't mind it much, I only need 'em open when I want to actually play a game. I tend to use Steam the most, it has my wishlist and most of my library. But when I buy something, I certainly check where it's cheaper. And if it's on sale on Chrono.gg, in a Humble Bundle or on GOG then I'm getting it there.
So what I'm trying to say is that I love this comic, but - for me - it isn't very recognizable.
Yeah, though the motivations for preferring a monopoly-like situation might be the same, there's a pretty crucial difference between Netflix: excluding their own shows (and here, "Netflix's own shows" is very vaguely and porously defined, which we'll return to), Netflix's video programming library...isn't isolated to Netflix. Some are available on other streaming platforms, though many have been removed on that account. Lots of them are still broadcast on television, including FRIENDS, which Netflix played an exorbitant amount to keep in its entirety. The majority of them, I'd say, are available to purchase in actual film media, including virtually every movie. In fact, Netflix's physical theatrical film library is probably still larger than its digital one. House of Cards is all on blu-ray--what has vaguely and largely inaccurately described as "anime produced by Netflix" isn't just available on disc for purchase, lots of it broadcast in Japan at some point or another. This effectively means, to Netflix's dismay, alternatives are plentiful--provided you don't limit yourself only to streaming, at least. The "norm" on Netflix, especially for films, as Netflix streaming, possible availability elsewhere (either streaming or purchase, particularly from iTunes or Google), and a physical release on DVD, blu-ray disc, and now UHD disc.
Steam isn't like that. With the demise of the physical PC retail market, outside of a few major franchises (some of which aren't on Steam, like Blizzard's properties), Steam becomes the sole media library for a huge chunk of the contemporary releases unless you're willing to resort to unsanctioned or illegal distribution. Steam is, in effect, what Netflix probably wishes it were--the "only" place to get what's in demand, whether it was FRIENDS or the new Doom or the upcoming Total War game (by the way, anyone remember Steam's rather laughable attempt to sell movies?). As an example, if you wanted to buy Doom on PC...Steam is the only show in town, even if you were willing to "inconvenience" yourself with a physical copy, because you'd just be using the same ecosystem. The "norm" is a game comes to Steam, and it's only on Steam (as far as the PC is concerned). If you buy a disc, you install that disc to Steam (you simply inconvenienced Valve by including another party, the retailer).
For a business's bottom line, that's a pretty big difference. From a consumer standpoint, that can be a pretty big difference--who gives a shit if you were banned from Netflix? Every Netflix account is, by-and-large, interchangeable, and even if you didn't replace it...an inconvenience, at worse, to the point where it's pretty much not a thing. Compared to being cut off from hundreds or thousands of dollars of purchases if a Steam account were banned.
Of course, someone can make the point: "(For convenience sake), I want all my movies to be on one service (Netflix), and all my games to be on one service (Steam)." Other services are inconvenient, unreliable, or otherwise leave a bad impression (if anyone remembers Steam's start, it was called a Steaming Pile of Shit for a reason). Or you simply don't want to be bothered with multiple accounts. Steam doesn't come with a subscription fee (by and large), so you're not being expected to manage subscriptions, but you do have to actual run the software and keep the account data. That's a completely understandable reason. But it doesn't change the fact that for people who are worried, Steam's near-monopoly presented a inescapable situation for PC gaming. "Gabe Newell saved PC gaming," is all well and good, but in the process they became the only show in town (and completely obliterated the second-hand PC gaming marketplace, along with almost everyone else in the first-hand marketplace). Even if you agree with those measures, it still meant a pretty obvious reckoning: Valve makes the marketplace itself, not the actual content of it. Valve weren't the first people to bring a digital distribution platform to market, just the most successful for gaming. If they were willing to eat the losses in sales, the same way Valve was when they extricated themselves from the physical media marketplace, there's no reason the actual content producers couldn't create their own distribution platform.
And now they have. And the nature of "Triple-A" development towards a few massive publishing houses, on PC as well as anywhere else, makes it all the more possible.
Valve changed PC gaming. And now that they don't want it to change, it's going to change without them.
There's also UPlay (which technically most stuff there is also on Steam, but you still need UPlay to play them because Ubisoft), Battle.net (which I don't use, though a bunch of phishers seem to think I do), the aforementioned GoG, and probably a couple others I'm not aware of.
I'm not really thrilled about Epic Store being another platform I'll need to install (I barely even touch non-Steam platforms unless it's necessary) but at the same time, while I don't believe that you need competition to drive innovation per se, if this competition does make the platforms better then in the end we all win. \
Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go to my shrine to Hideo Kojima to light more incense in the hopes that Cyberpunk 2077 isn't going to be Epic exclusive.
For me it's Steam, Blizzard, Origin, and... *shudder* Uplay
If Origin offered to transfer all of my Steam games to them for free or maybe a 5% processing fee, I'd go there.
Given how big a high-value target they are, and how their rapid growth has been unprecedented as a result of the Fortnite success and all that, I guaran-fuckin'-tee you that "SECURITY" is the bottom of their to-do list as they scramble to get their store front and center. It's the same story everywhere - IT Security is the lowest priority, until it suddenly becomes the highest priority. I give them inside a year before a catastrophic breach occurs.
(That's not to say other platforms are less vulnerable, just to say Epic is in a unique position to get massively cracked wide open, and soon)
Exclusive titles is probably the best way to do it. Nothing would motivate someone to use a competing service/purchase a console more than a hotly anticipated exclusive game.
Things are a bit different nowadays, as the architecture difference between consoles and pcs is ever shrinking, but man, back in the SNES/PSX it was absolutely my experience. Hardly any overlap, with shoddy ports in both directions.
Even the more notable popular indies are controller based games and the Switch is starting to become the premiere indie platform.
Not to mention that the Japanese market is, has, and probably always will be geared towards the console market, which is why we've never had a proper SMT/Persona game come to PC among other things. And even when ports come, they sometimes come ages later... for example, Catherine just recently got ported to Steam and that was a last gen title.
EDIT:
And probably will be popular for amateur devs too, as RPGMaker of all things is getting a Switch port.
The truth is that anymore, the big game houses, AKA Activision, Ubisoft, EA all develop for console as the native platform and then port to PC. That's just the way it has been for the past 10-15 years. Not every PC port is terrible, but most PC games by the major publishers are definitely indeed ports.
On the other hand, nothing demotivates customers from buying a game than having to sign up for an entire service they have shown no interest in.
Which kind of reinforces the value of exclusives, doesn't it? I mean, if it's so demotivating to have a separate service and all, why would you ever bother unless you had to?
I'm definitely on the side of the equation that any friction equals I'd rather not do it at all, and i have a wealth of non-friction choices (i.e. steam or battle net)
Right, and that would potentially matter to the game publisher, sure. But as the game store, do you see how you stopped mattering when you said you'd never buy from their game store, period? They don't care what demotivates you. Why would they?
(As for the publisher, they don't care about you, either. They just care about your cash. If the game store can replace your cash, they also don't care what demotivates you.)
I'm so hype for Cyberpunk 2077 I'd live in a cyberpunk arcology if it meant being able to play it.
Ignoring your grossly inaccurate shade, you're missing the point. Pretty much all of us already use multiple launchers, and wewon't not play a game just because it's only on another launcher even if many prefer to use a single one.
There are legitimate concerns, such as aforementioned security, and also the fact that like any other E-Store, there's a bit of trepidation about a new one because there's no guarantee that it won't go under. And if it does, then the concern of what will happen to one's access to a game comes up.
Not to mention that the entire point of the strip is parodying the concept of platform wars, and the fanboyism that comes with it. Tycho's blogpost even says he wants Epic Store to succeed for Kojima's sake.