Report: Epic gave $2m to Snapshot Games for Phoenix Point exclusivity - Sensationalist Headlines

steam holds a monopoly because they offer the best service, publishers are free to sell their game on any platform but i'm not going to buy it on other platforms that lack basic features that steam has.

Just to clarify, Epics money came from Fortnite not Chinese money backing

That's not how kickstarter works. You're essentially purchasing the promise of a product, there's no gurantee that you will get the product or that it will end up being exactly as described. Kickstarter wouldn't be able to exist if backers could sue for broken promises.

You actually can sue croudfunded projects and people have before.

That only applies when they are straight up fraudulent. Which doesn't apply to this.

It depends on the nature of the failure. If it was demonstrably a situation where they tried but just could not deliver on a feature without compromising the project as a whole, then it's fine. But in cases of negligence or wilfull disregard then there isn't a good defense in a lawsuit.

Eh, technically. https://www.polygon.com/a/epic-4-0/the-four-lives-of-epic-games As these things lined up, the decision to change the company began to grow out of a deep sense of foreboding. "I would describe it as seeing the writing on the wall," Sweeney says. "There was an increasing realization that the old model wasn’t working anymore and that the new model was looking increasingly like the way to go." https://www.pcgamesn.com/fortnite/why-has-fortnite-taken-so-long “If you look at Epic five years ago, we were very much a ‘one game at a time’ developer,” worldwide creative director Donald Mustard says. “We’d make Gears of War, we’d put it in the box, and then we’d ship it. And we saw the industry shifting more towards games as a service, downloadable games, and free-to-play being a big influence.” The whole reason Epic got into bed with Tencent is they needed help with the "games as a service", which Tencent had already mastered when the minority stake was purchased. Yes, Tencent isn't spying on you and shit but you could argue with their oversight with how Fortnite presents itself as a platform and a game, then yes the money did come from Chinese backing.

Their misrepresenation also has to cause injury. And I'm not sure if having to download a different program to download the game could be considered injury.

I'm against Steam's digital games distribution monopoly as any other, but this kind of behaviour is gross But I guess buying your way into the market is easier than providing a better consumer experience than Steam/GOG...

tbh I would've sold out for 2 mil in bat of an eye.

Steam is not a monopoly

For my sake, any fucking thing Snapshot games says to us, any promise they make, from this point onward is completely worthless.

You repeat things, but never support them. You'll repeat Steam had a monopoly, but, as usual, never be able to back that up in any way shape or form.

Integrity is the one thing you should never sell. You can't buy it back.

Depends who you're selling to. Being Epic Exclusive doesn't really matter when your main market is consoles.

I was more referring to Snapshot and how Jullian Gollop went to Epic and asked for a deal. Especially since Phoenix Point was crowd funded, and they were accepting pre-orders on their website for steam and GoG keys.

No, but its by far the largest platform in the market. And I'd say it has earned that position. Having it being undermined by Epic literally paying developers an asston of money to disregard every other platform but theirs is very sad.

Worth noting that this sellout to Epic means Fig investors are being told that's a 191% return on Fig's investment into Snapshot. I don't think Fig investors are going to care about the Epic/Steam shit, they got (theoretically!) paid out. It's the consumer who was waiting for the game to hit market that's getting dicked by the timed exclusivity. I say theoretically because unless things have changed Fig is set up so that it can take the money and run and leave the front-line crowdfunding "investor" holding the bag, and we haven't actually seen Fig pay out over the Snapshot/EGS money.

It's always been a monolith, but it has never been a monopoly.

I hope they are happy and don't plan to make another game. Thats the thing I said before, you basically throw away your entire playerbase. Epic covers the cost, you make a profit but for indies a dead playerbase that remembers the bullshit you did can mean your next game will make a lot less. And Epic won't be there for the next one with another 2mil.

I really hope that you're right about that.

Saying steam is a monopoly is like saying Harley has a monopoly on the motorcycle world. They have the biggest market in the US, you see them everywhere, you know someone who has one, or you have one. But that doesn't stop you from going to the Indian, Honda, Kawasaki, or whatever dealer probably just down the road from the Harley shop and getting a different bike, and Harley isn't going to stop you. My point being is that, even though steam has the biggest name, and market share, doesn't make them a monopoly. At all. And at this point I'm sick to death of people saying they are so I'm just going to say anyone still arguing that steam is a monopoly and epic is good in anyway is a willfully ignorant consumer who is literally working against themselves.

"Steam in it's heyday was closer" Steam was never a monopoly, as it always had competition with bodies like GOG, Uplay and Origin, not to mention bodies like Realarcade and Direct2Drive early in it's lifespan. In truth, it has a long, long way until it gets to the point of "owning it all". I never said that it was a monopoly, just that it was (hell, still is, and TTYTT I don't want this to change) closer to one then Epic is currently. Sometimes I think you single me out to yell at me.

Not really. You say things I don't think are well supported. If steam was "closer" in its heyday, can you clarify how for me? It was still miles and miles away from any sort of dominance on the market that could be called a "monopoly". Back in it's first 4-5 years of existance, it garnered a community, but it didn't have even 5000 games at that point. Monopoly, as a word, means something. Everyone who uses it to describe Steam or another monolithic entity is using it poorly. Epic isn't a monopoly either, but they're applying monopolistic policies that Valve/Steam never have. No game was, or is, locked to Steam via exclusivity clauses. Epic has a monopoly on selling a variety of games, which is problematic on an open platform like the PC, but they don't, and probably won't, possess a true monopoly. That doesn't mean there isn't a shit ton of room for them to be exploitative though.

So like everything else involving investors; the consumer gets fucked.

They made more money off of this exclusivity deal than the entire crowdfunding process. If they were to basically refund every single person that funded them to begin with, they'll still make profit because of Epic's deal. Even if the game's sales are crippled in the long-term, it's really no skin off of their backs because the hardcore enthusiasts will either cave in and go to the Epic Game Store or just wait the year and buy it anyways regardless of the developer politics involved.

I would give myself an optimistic rating to be honest but especially with what Phoenix Point pulled I'm sure you made a very big dent is the amount of people that would give them any money on a new project, especially if it is kickstarted again.