Why Do Developers feel they have to insult the people who buy their games?

Choosing to partner with the epic store and do the exclusivity thing sure isn’t the most popular decision a little developer like this one could do. But to be so insulting to gamers as they have been in this article has made me decide to not have anything to do with them.

Ooblets is one of the few harvest moon type games that I have found I rather enjoy playing like My Time at Portia but I have decided not to purchase this game or any further support via crowdfunding.

Before I watch any of these I will say that any time epic game store posts anything game related, the collective internet shits themselves over who can tell “nOt GoNnA EpIc EvAr bEcAuSe StEaM iS mY oNlY mAsTeR”.

That being said, I’ll check these out when I get home. Esp yong yeah, as I highly (mostly) respect his opinion.

I don’t use epic because of its GDPR violations. And its messing with my steam installation without permission. And the scummy way they do business.

Ultimately its a personal choice for me. I refuse to support scummy practices.

That said This isn’t about the EGS. Its about a little developer insulting the very people that would have been buying their games.

Part of me doesn’t mind EGS railing against the EU a little. I think they exert too much control over things right now.

How is it “messing with [your] steam installation”? I have it running through Steam so I can stream former PS4 exclusives (see, irony!) such as Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls via my SteamLink box and haven’t had anything go wrong. Maybe I can help you with your problem.

As for the game dev, I think they were only being a little snarky and trying to make a little point … and in this day and age, lorrrrrrd knows one cannot make a POINT on Twitter without incurring the WRATH OF TWITTER RAGE ™.

I don’t even know this game, but I’m apt to buy it just to give them some cash. lol

1 Like

You don’t mind Epic Games allowing hackers to violate your right to privacy? All the GDPR is is a set of laws dictating how companies must protect your data. It’s the direct result of all the companies that kept being hacked a while ago.

https://eugdpr.org/

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/justice-and-fundamental-rights/data-protection/2018-reform-eu-data-protection-rules_en

Admittedly most of my games are on steam but I also have games on Stardock, Origin, GOG, and uPlay.

You saw those video’s above and you think that dev is a little snarky? I hate to see what you think is downright rude.

Its insulting gamers that put money into a project which promise a steam release then change their mind when they get a big fat check from Epic and try to pass it off as those who get pissed off about it are “entitled toxic baby gamers”.

  1. Deep Silver announced that Metro Exodus would be an epic exclusive a meer week or so before it would have launched on steam after thousands of people had already preordered.
  2. Several other games after crowdfunding and promising to release on steam changing their minds and releasing on EGS exclusively.
  3. Mech Warrior online another dev that betrays their customers for a bigger paycheck then insults their player base when they get upset about it.
  4. Shenmue III.

Eventually epic had to give those kickstarters that wanted them, refunds

I don’t have an informed opinion on this particular controversy, but even tho I don’t play Fortnite, I’m an Epic fanboy for the fact that they were able to coerce the hardware/platform owners to accept allowing cross-platform play and a single account out in the “cloud” on Fortnite’s servers.

Which we’re old enough to realize that’s amazing, given that my understanding is that if you buy or earn an item for your account on one platform, you can then use it on all hardware platforms … I’m not sure how they worked out getting Sony and Microsoft to agree to that. Recently released Dauntless is evidently using the Epic Games’ servers for the single account support, in a similar fashion that Epic Games’ Fortnite player’s account is on those servers, as I understand it.

And we now have Bungie’s Destiny 2 implementing a single account spanning multiple hardware platforms. :sunglasses:

I truly don’t have a problem with EGS as a digital distribution just their business decisions seem scummy to me. Thankfully not on the level of EA or Activision just yet.

All of these issues, however, are irrelevant as I just don’t like the platform. I installed it and played around with it got one of the free games and uninstalled it as I didn’t like the feel of the UI.

I prefer GOG. And Steam during sales of course…lol CDPR, owners of GOG, knows how to treat customers. I wish all devs and publishers were like them.

Platform Choice, I like this. Epic takes the choice of platform away from PC gamers.

And I absolutely hate devs that attack gamers no matter the platform their sold on. Which is why I posted in the first place.

What? I think between this and your interpretation of GDPR that you need to calm down a little bit and stop reading only hate-for-EGS websites for a little while. Steam is the one holding us hostage right now. Sony and Microsoft have had CONSOLE EXCLUSIVES for 25 years. How, exactly, are they removing choice? If anything, they are adding choice to the marketplace, and as a typical disruptor, it’s nothing but hate from the establishment (read: Tesla)

That’s not how GDPR works, it does not protect your data from hackers. IT SysAdmins do that. Poorly, I might add, at companies all over the world. CapitalOne, Target, and how many others just this past month, yet I don’t see a world wide Twitter parade aimed specifically aimed at their CEO and company’s idea of best practices.

Epic is going through growing pains, much as Steam went through 8 years ago. They didn’t have cloud saves in the beginning, they didn’t have a full-fledged chat system when they started, they had nothing w/ Half Life 2 and we loved it and they took off. Now, it feels like Steam is paying people to post constant vitriolic hate on every, single, post they make on Facebook, twitter, or instagram.

I didn’t watch the videos, I read their statement. Their statement is snarky, any of the videos besides the direct interview are just opinionated interpretations of said statement. Again, I still have yet to watch them, as I’ve been busy this weekend fixing my garden tractor and taking care of my real, physical property.

I don’t really understand the level of frustration, since it’s still Windows PC “platform”, not like Xbox or Playstation exclusives, but that’s okay if others choose not to install new software.

Everybody seems to be migrating to combined “launcher” programs, Blizzard did it and then had to allow Activision to populate their launcher with non-Blizzard games. :neutral_face: To me, I’m more “upset” when Sony and Microsoft pay for exclusive release windows, or go to the extreme of buying a game studio so it will never be released on the other hardware platform. :slightly_frowning_face:

I’m more in the mindset that this is like growing up with the Apollo program (yeah, I’m that old), if we wanted to listen to Walter Cronkite, need to turn to CBS when he’s on. If Jules Bergman was on, needed to switch to ABC. Sure, I wish that they were both on the same network and station, but that’s the way it was 50 years ago, had to choose one channel over the other when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but could use the same television to watch either of them. :sunglasses:

What was cool was that the two of them had choices on deciding on employers, and we viewers had choices on which to watch. :slightly_smiling_face:

Similarly, I can use my same Windows PC to play Blizzard games off their launcher, Steam games off theirs, or I guess now Epic launcher for others.

I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware I was supposed to be upset.

They are separate ecosystems. This doesn’t really apply here.

By forcing exclusivity. Other companies do this too. Its not “Exclusive” to Epic

Not directly. Its a set of laws and procedures that European companies have to abide by or they are fined. It’s a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information from individuals who live in the European Union. Protecting your data from breaches is part of its mandate. Failure to comply with GDPR can result in Fines from €10million or 2% of the offending organization’s annual revenue (whichever is greater) to €20million or 4% annual revenue (again whichever is greater) depending on the severity. If a company has European citizens, the GDPR applies whether or not the organization is based in the EU or not.

:frowning: I haven’t been paid yet. Someone should get on that.

Also, this is off-topic. The topic is about devs who insult gamers. By calling them entitled and toxic in a toxic and entitled manner. A perfect case of Pot-Kettel-Black.

Here is an announcement done right.

Do you see a difference between this and the ooblets statement? I sure do.

And here are my thoughts about the whole issue as told by Bellular who obviously explains things far better then I do.

“So far, every announcement has been met with backlash from a vocal minority of gamers. This has included everything from aggressive comments, harassment, and threats of pirating exclusive games, all the way to death threats. Despite this, Epic has been unwavering in its pursuits, with more and more games being declared timed exclusives each month.” [emphasis added]

Plain, pure hatred and harassment is what this culture of rage that you seem to subscribe to has come to. People aren’t allowed to have an opinion that offends anyone anymore. Everything has to be “beige” because chartreuse would be too blinding to some. Unfortunately, your perceived “insults” have forced Epic to respond to the vitriolic Twitter scene:

https://gamerant.com/epic-responds-harassment-store/

Please, stop abusing people for having a different opinion from your … even if you don’t like it. It’s not healthy for anyone.

Rev, didn’t your parents ever teach you two wrongs don’t make a right? It is not right that people spew hate. Isn’t it also not right for a dev to do the same.

How that dev handled the announcement by insulting gamers was wrong and only served to fan the flames they knew was coming. That blog post is insulting.

How a company handles consumer backlash is very telling.

As I said about this is the correct way of announcing a partnership with epic games.

Industries of Titan to launch on Epic Games Store!

20th March 2019

Citizens of Titan, we have some news to share. Industries of Titan will be launching in Early Access exclusively on the Epic Games Store!

Brace Yourself Games is a talented team of indie developers, but we are making a very complex game. Epic’s support will allow us to grow our team further, and to make Industries of Titan the best it can possibly be!

We will be updating Industries of Titan frequently throughout the exclusive period, and we plan to 1.0 a year later on both the Epic Games Store and on Steam.

As always, we’d like to thank you for your support! We are working extremely hard to make Industries of Titan something special, and we know that the game will be much stronger, both at the Early Access launch and at the 1.0 launch, thanks to Epic’s help.

We’ll have more news regarding our launch date in the future, but for now, please visit the Brace Yourself Games booth at PAX East 2019 to try our new city building demo, and to pick up our new Fangamer shirts and exclusive Pinny Arcade pins! See you in Boston!

This is how the ooblets dev did it.

Everyone kept talking about this “Epic” thing, so we thought we’d see what it’s all about.

Here’s what these Epic folks are doing: First they teach every kid in the world these obnoxious dances and now they’re offering funding to game developers in exchange for PC exclusivity on their game store.

This is exactly what Marx warned us about!

Just imagine if other companies got it in their head to offer funding in exchange for exclusives. What’d be next? Game consoles paying for games to be exclusive on their consoles? Netflix paying for exclusive shows? Newspapers paying for exclusive articles? It’d be some sort of late capitalist dystopia.

Some foreshadowing of something some gamers are not going to like but it seems ok for now.

Okay so goofing aside, yes, we’ve signed with Epic for PC launch exclusivity . It’s incredible news for us and I’m hoping you all can be excited about it, too.

This is cool. Partnering with a distributor has been done before and holds many benefits especially for a little dev like them.

We asked Epic if we could talk frankly about the situation and they were like whatever, so here’s a bit of insight into what this all means and why we did it:

Who is Epic and what are you talking about?

Epic is a company that makes the Unreal game engine, a bunch of popular games including Fortnite, and the Epic Game Store (EGS).
EGS is a PC game distribution platform like Steam, Origin, Itch.io, and GOG Galaxy.
Epic paying for PC exclusives has become the latest thing Gamers™ have gotten angry about, which I’ll talk more about a bit further down.

This is where it starts to go wrong. They use Gamers with a trademark symbol as if being a gamer is somehow bad. They are using it as a negative lable.

What it means for Ooblets:

  • Ooblets will be launching on PC through EGS. We won’t be selling the game on other PC stores for a pretty long while (that’s the exclusivity bit).
  • We’ll still be launching on Xbox One. The Epic exclusivity is just limited to PC.
  • We got some cash money upfront from the deal so we can make the game we always wanted to with fewer compromises.

It’s quite clear from this point on that the purpose of this post is not just announce their partnership to Epic but to also incite gamers.

What it means for you:

  • You’ll have to install EGS if you wanna buy Ooblets on PC. I know that’s asking a lot but I believe in you and your ability to download a free thing and create a user account (if you haven’t already done so to play Fortnite which I KNOW YOU HAVE ).

Now here they start using language to belittle gamers. Like I said to incite them to anger. Is it any wonder they are so angry?

Why’d we do this?

So we had a big decision to make, and we didn’t take it lightly.

Because Epic doesn’t yet have the same market share as their competitors, they offered us a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores. That takes a huge burden of uncertainty off of us because now we know that no matter what, the game won’t fail and we won’t be forced to move back in with our parents (but we do love and appreciate you, parents!).

Now we can just focus on making the game without worrying about keeping the lights on. The upfront money they’re providing means we’ll be able to afford more help and resources to start ramping up production and doing some cooler things.

I don’t have an issue with this part. Seems straight forward.

We feel the same impatience about launching Ooblets as a lot of you are probably feeling. I think it’s felt like the game is taking forever because:

  1. We announced the game and have been sharing everything about it since basically the day we came up with the concept. Most studios only start talking about their games when they’re close to the finish line.
  2. We’ve only ever had the resources for just one programmer, Rebecca, who makes everything. And she also does most of the art, UI, and other stuff on the game.

The investment we’re getting upfront from Epic will allow us to ramp up our development resources which will lead to faster development in the long run, but it might also delay our initial launch a tad because it takes some time to ramp things up and because we won’t have as much financial pressure to prematurely shove something we’re not happy with out the door.

We’re not going to be perfectionists about our initial launch, but there’s still a lot of foundational stuff we need to sort out before we’re even ready for an early access launch.

Same with this.

Angry at Epic, us, the world?

We’re aware of the backlash that’s been hitting games that sign with Epic. I don’t expect much of our uniquely-lovely community to fit into this weird anti-Epic contingent, but I figured I’d share our thoughts and have an open conversation about the issues.

I’ve read through all the arguments against Epic and they all basically come down to a couple core issues:

A bit condescending to people that don’t like epic but I can’t fault them for being a little frustrated.

“EGS doesn’t have as many features as other stores”

As a user of both Steam and EGS myself, I haven’t had any issues with using EGS to buy and play games personally. But regarding the features that are still missing, that’s just sorta the way software is developed. Things take a lot longer to develop properly than people tend to realize and nobody comes to market with perfect software.

I remember waaay back when I plopped the disc for Half Life 2 into my PC for the first time and was forced to install this new thing called Steam. It was a barely-functional mess back then, as anyone who used it from that time period can tell you. It’s had like 15 years to improve. If it wasn’t worthwhile to improve, it wouldn’t have been and you wouldn’t still be using it.

I’m sure there’s a team of folks working on launcher features for EGS, but their work depends on the platform being worthwhile from a market-share perspective to keep going.

This is true both the statement and their anecdote. The EGS isn’t feature complete and that IS a valid reason not to like something. Nobody has the right to force somebody into liking something they don’t like. I have no issue with this statment.

“It’s anti-consumer to have exclusives”

This is the most common complaint about Epic, but I don’t think people have really thought it through.

This is true. It is anti-consumer to have exclusives. People should be able to have a complete game on whatever system the game is released on. This is the same issue with preorder bonuses. Look at Cyberpunk 2077 or even Witcher 3. You get all that stuff with it no matter where you bought it weather at launch or 2 years later.

I can understand the frustration of having to buy different consoles to play the games you want, but there’s no extra cost to use EGS. The store and launcher just require a free signup. It’s not like having to pay for HBO and Netflix and Hulu to watch all the shows you want, it’s more like just having to press a button on your remote to change between free TV channels.

This is false equivalence. None of those require you to install anything on your computer.

It’s also really disappointing to see folks threatening to pirate a game just because they can’t get it on the game launcher they’re used to. Feeling like you’re owed the product of other people’s work on your terms or else you’ll steal it is the epitome of that word “entitlement” that people use to discuss immature, toxic gamers.

The first part I completely agree with. Software piracy is evil. I don’t support this one bit. I don’t suport gamestops used games market. I consider that legal piracy.

The next part I have a problem with. The words Entitled and toxic are used by devs and game media to shut down people that have a difference of opinion from them. People backed them, ie paid money, and expected to get it on steam. This is the kind of behavior that has turned people off the EGS. Epic has a habit of throwing money at a dev and enticing them into an exclusivity agreement when that same dev was going to release their game on steam. And they sometimes do this without warning and in the case of the Mech Warrior dev, They knew they were going to EGS as exclusives in April and didn’t tell anyone and let them continue spending money preordering and dropped the bombshell just recently.

I get the appeal of wanting to seek out things to get angry about. Venting anger is cathartic and natural, but let’s have just a little perspective about what we decide to get angry about. Look at the things going on around you and ask yourself if there might be anything just a tad more worthwhile to be upset about.

Here are just a few suggestions:

  • Climate change
  • Human rights abuses
  • The new Twitter desktop UI
  • The last season of Game of Thrones

(Those last two were jokes, please don’t yell at people about them)

So let’s remember that this is all low-stakes video game stuff we’re dealing with here. Nothing to get worked up about. And I (Ben/perplamps) will be around on our Discord to answer any questions and talk through any concerns or confusion you might still have.

Okay, that was a lot so thanks so much for reading through it all. We’re really hoping this Epic stuff is something you can all celebrate with us for the good thing that it is, and we’ll have a lot more fun stuff to share with you moving forward.

P.S. Yes, we got out our mocap rig, spent ages setting it up and recording everything just to get a flossing gif for this post. And no, we don’t know how to floss.

Making light of what people are angry about making them even angrier. Telling people that their anger is without merit and that they have better things to be angry about makes people more angry.

I have to admit the animation is cool.

You can see it in the article if it doesn’t show up here. It’s pretty cute.

Now the story doesn’t end here but continues on in the devs discord server where he proceeds to go all Soderlund on people.

There is one screenshot going around that he said: “gamers would be better off in gas chambers” but this has been proven fake. Which I believe, if for no other reason then that the guy is Jewish. People were believing it too because of all the other crap he posted.

https://twitter.com/DontKillMeJay/status/1158709833350176768?s=20

I don’t hate epic game store. I just don’t like it so I won’t use it. I don’t care that you or others like it. That you do has nothing to do with me. People have different likes and dislikes. Nothing wrong or abusive about that.

All I see is everyone crying about hurt feelings, or they didn’t like what he said, or it felt wrong. I tell my son, the only thing you can control in this world is your reaction to other people. And literally, the final argument here is “people reacting to you and your words.”

I don’t understand this methodology and I find that standard of judgement disconcerting about the entire argument.

I mean, ok, they hurt someone’s feelings. Oh well? shrug Move on, find something else to do. Don’t threaten this guy and his family. Are you kidding? Of course 2 wrongs don’t make a right. But giving a point-by-point rebuttal about how your feelings were hurt by the words they chose isn’t helping anyone. Instead of saying, ok, this is how you feel? Fine here is my answer. But now, you want only YOUR answer to be the “right” one. That’s not how it works.

And as typical with this type of argument, I never said I liked EGS. I’ve never actually bought anything from them, I’ve only downloaded freebies from them so far. Still, my computer hasn’t become a Russian Bot nor has my financial data been sold to the Chinese government, and Epic didn’t take any Steam data other than what I allowed them. I have constantly stated EGS have their share of issues as well as missing basic features, as any growing store will, but the unrelenting hate towards them is unwarranted and, quite frankly, disgusting. The hate that is claimed to not be there (but is) is perpetuating the hate-cycle.

Everyone should be against the Steam-hold Syndrome. Every single Tweet by Epic is met with cries of hatred and “Not My Game Store” nonsense.

I will not deal with the Epic Store because I disagree with their exclusivity tactics, the weak Epic store app and the fact that Tim Sweeney is a freaking hypocrite.

1 Like

Sadly, that sounds like the GOG 2.0 store rather than what EGS has currently! I can’t wait for that to come into public beta. Truly an open gaming platform, sure it has to launch each launcher but still unifies the load a bit.

To use an analogy, poking a bear isn’t something they should be doing. They have little cause to complain when the bear attacks them.

And as you said

Mr. perplamps should have known to stop constantly poking the bear over and over again.

Exactly, Epic’s poaching of crowdfunded games as Az heel vs babyface puts it, has over sensitized people in their dislike for the EGS and then this issue with Glumberland and their announcement post and subsequent discord fumbles has thrown gas on an already hot issue.

Epic keeps making decisions that don’t seem ethical to some people.

I agree. This is a small part of my own dislike of the EGS along with his inflammatory twitter statements.

I am so looking forward to this. I have yet to receive a beta invite though :frowning:

2 Likes

Here is his statement regarding this whole issue released 10-20 minutes ago.

Its never ok to harass people at all much less in the way these two have been harassed. He doesn’t apologize but admits to some miscalculation in the way he handled things. Also others have taken some of his statements out of context. Even more others have fabricated stuff.

I hope he sues those that have harassed him and his wife/co-dev

This is the best thing Kotaku has posted in a year. It’s perfect and exactly what I was saying.

3 Likes

Interesting conversation here. I value the opinions of my fellow guildies and as such, I tend to stay out of the way of more knowledgeable folks. However, I must say one thing here… I don’t bother with Steam. My son uses it and I’ve listened to his comments regarding that platform for his games.

Personally, I’ll stick to my current stuff like the Bnet app for my WoW game and leave it at that. I use Twitch for my addon’s download and such, but not anything else on that platform. I am too old to be changing my ways now. I much prefer a single source I trust better than others, rather than multiples where I might not know much about any of the others using the same platform.

I like Discord for voice comms and the in-game bnet app for chatting with folks not logged into the game so we can connect without having to log into the game. But I am a limited user of anything outside of what I actually need.

But all the information provided here has given me more insight and I appreciate all the comments. Thanks a bunch for that.

1 Like

If there is ANY platform out there that actually deserves to be used its GoG. Its owned by CD Project Red so you know they are all about the consumer. They don’t use stupid anti-piracy schemes. That means no DRM. GoG has had no controversies that I remember. The customer service is way better then steams. I do like steam, honestly, I have almost 200 games on steam. https://steamcommunity.com/id/Kelryth/ But I usually try to remember to check GoG first.

3 Likes