Epic Games Store Dev's Twitch Gloat Backfires as World War Z Viewership Sinks

Over 80% of World War Z's Twitch audience has disappeared since launch. The drop means one Epic Games Store dev's tweet hasn't aged well.

[TekoIie]

I love this fake narrative people have made where we pretend Steam had no competition before. I thought the popular view of a monopoly is that it impedes progress and development of the market but somehow Steam was always improving and adding new features with "zero competition". They were always multiple steps ahead somehow with no competition.

[GameBoyColor]

Yup, it's not that steam has a monopoly, it's just that everything else continued to be ass while steam hard carried the pc community for years. Now EGS comes out being ass and resorts to paying for exclusives because nobody wanted to use their shitty platform. It would be fine if Epic didn't buy out games and try to have an honest competition but they know that would kill their fortnite launcher disguised as a store.

[KyRo]

Um, what? Steam has been a shell of its former self for years now. Any one with a ounce of sense can see this. Valve has needed a rival as big as epic to give them a boot up their ass and start changing their ways. They became lazy because whatever competition they had before epic was half assed.

[GameBoyColor]

Dude Epics store is bare bones. It's no better than origin and uplay. It has to used paid exclusives as a crutch, which is not the way competition should be done. If Valve started buying exclusives I guarantee that it would crush Epic and that's not something that should happen either but hell if Epic can do it why not Valve?

[Profchaos]

Steam has many years ahead of its competitors it's introduced features that just don't exist in completing platforms like in home streaming however it seems that most games I buy these days are on some other store be.it battle net, origin, Uplay, Microsoft and now epic. It's been a problem for a while these features in steam are great it's just that Devs make you use their storefronts all the time

[King_Noctis]

@kyro

Beside the almost automate game approval system, I see nothing wrong with Steam feature-wise.

People usually tend to hate something just for the sake of it.

[SegaGamer]

@Kryo

So tell us, in what way has Valve become lazy when it comes to Steam? What more do you want from it and what can they add that would change your mind?

I keep asking this question, but I don't seem to be getting any answers.

[TheColbertinator]

Nicely spoken. I've tried dozens of store apps and direct download options for decades but Steam was always ahead of the curve.

[Profchaos]

I'll go you one better remember when people didn't want steam in the first place it was a piece of bloatware that came with half life 2

[jeki]

Who cares about the narrative some people have made, it doesn't matter.

What matters is what Steam is today, and it isn't very good.

Let's let developers decide what games to make and where to sell them, let's never take those decisions away from them.

[TekoIie]

"What matters is what Steam is today, and it isn't very good."

Why? Don't just say it's not very good and then provide nothing to back that statement up. Steam achievements, Forums, Workshop, great sales, Curator system, Review system, Steam tags and of course a redesign is on the way. Those are just the biggest things I can remember of the top of my head being added in recent years. How many of those features does EGS have?

"Let's let developers decide what games to make and where to sell them, let's never take those decisions away from them."

Oh if developers want to be paid to release their game exclusively via EGS they can do so. But if they were given a choice to release on one or the other without a payment from Epic would they choose EGS or Steam? We all know the answer is Steam.

[jeki]

@TekoIie

Steam isn't very good for developers, that is obvious at this point. If it were devs wouldn't be turning their backs on Valve Corporation.

As for all those features you think are great, I understand. But different experiences are great too. What's the point of Epic adding the same features, so that it can be just like Steam?

Of course Epic is paying for exclusives, they are valuable. Exclusive deals have been around forever and they are a healthy part of business.

[Seafort]

Developers need to wise up and sell where the customers are not where the moneyhatting comes from. That is short termism in it's worst form.

I won't be following around every 3rd party developer as they switch between stores and those that offer them the most money for exclusivity.

You sell your products where the customers are or you don't sell at all.

Steam is just as good as it's always has been. Just because Epic is undercutting the market and offering a guaranteed revenue for poor sales does not mean there is competition now.

It's the complete opposite. Epic isn't competition it's an actual monopoly. They are stopping developers from selling their games at other stores for a year or more in an exclusivity contract. That's not good for anyone least of all the developers that rely on getting on as many marketplaces as possible to sell their games.

The Epic Store is nothing compared to Steam but some devs think it's the PC gaming renaissance. They are going to regret taking Epic's money when the steam customer well dries up and they only have Epic to fall back on.

[TekoIie]

"Steam isn't very good for developers, that is obvious at this point. If it were devs wouldn't be turning their backs on Valve Corporation."

You've done it again. You've made a claim and not backed it up. Devs arent turning their backs on the service because everyone we hear about EGS exclusivity we always hear "don't worry we promise it's just for a year". If you're going to use the cut Steam takes as a negative then you need to be consistent in your criticism and get onto MS, Sony and Nintendo for doing the exact same thing.

"Of course Epic is paying for exclusives, they are valuable. Exclusive deals have been around forever and they are a healthy part of business."

Amazing how we never saw this defence for MS when TR became a timed exclusive...

[jeki]

@TekoIie

"If you're going to use the cut Steam takes as a negative then you need to be consistent in your criticism and get onto MS, Sony and Nintendo for doing the exact same thing."

I didn't mention Steam's cut at all. But even if I did I would not need to criticize MS, Sony, and Nintendo because that's not what this article is about.

"Amazing how we never saw this defence for MS when TR became a timed exclusive..."

But what about when MS did it...doesn't really mean anything. Whataboutery isn't a good argument.

[TekoIie]

@Jeki

"I didn't mention Steam's cut at all. But even if I did I would not need to criticize MS, Sony, and Nintendo because that's not what this article is about."

Notice how I said 'IF'. It was me being pre-emptive in countering a possible argument you could make in opposition to Steam. You also wouldn't have to criticise MS, Sony or Nintendo but in doing so you'd show that you're not consistent in your argument and that you don't actually care about how big a cut the developer gets. It would mean you're only holding it against Steam for some reason which would mean you have a double standard.

"But what about when MS did it...doesn't really mean anything. Whataboutery isn't a good argument."

Once again it was to see if you're consistent. If you were against MS doing it but fine with EPIC then it would show a double standard. This is 101 of debating...

In the end though you've offered no argument to backup your claim of steam "not being very good" today. At this point i think it's safe to assume you were just talking out your ass.

[rainslacker]

@Seafort

There are a lot of products that have exclusive deals to sell at specific retailers. Outside gaming, most people don't complain about it. They just get it from the store that sells them, or they pick a different option. Look through any given Sunday ad in the paper, and you'll see plenty of, "Only available here" type ads.

It's not illegal, and it's not akin to a monopoly in the least. Any company is free to decide when and where to sell their products, and they are free to take money from a retailer to give them preferential treatment.

Yes, it does make sense to sell your products where the customers are. That's how Steam has maintained its dominance for so long. Other stores came and went. They got games on their platform by offering lower cuts. But, devs didn't avoid Steam, so the customer stuck to where they knew, because the costs were the same, and there was no incentive for them to try anywhere else. It's the reason why even MS, with all it's clout and having it's store pre-installed in Windows 10, isn't doing gangbusters, despite having plenty of the same features integrated into it's service that Steam does.

Epic is doing what they have to do to get users. They could certainly do better with the features. But, I see lots of people saying Epic is being anti-competative, or they're monopolizing the market, which don't seem to understand how the fair trade system works. Same is true for those calling Steam a monopoly. It's not, but it has a huge disproportionate control of the market. It's the same way that MS has a dominate position in the PC OS market. Not technically a monopoly, but it's has many of the same pitfalls.

[jeki]

@TekoIie

Your attempt to portray me as a hypocrite failed. Besides, why would you want to make it about me when it's about Steam?

[TekoIie]

@Jeki

"Your attempt to portray me as a hypocrite failed"

Nope. I proved that you'll do whatever you can to avoid actually putting forward an argument for why Steam isn't good today. You're just talking out your ass and not making any points at all.

[TricksterArrow]

Is this really news?

[Rude-ro]

Unfortunately...
Like how espn is highlights for the soap operas of sports.. gaming media is about biased leans and being shills that use things like twitch to make up false narratives about “popularity”.
Sad when the only way to make money is to do what you can for clicks these days.

[4kgk76]

Wwz kill wwz the game is a buggy and glitchy Mess. Wwz clearly wasn’t ready to launch the devs of that game rush it out to launch next to days gone to try to obviously feed on that game potential success.

[Rachel_Alucard]

The devs or whoever paid Shroud to advertise the game on day 1 and he brought in around 30K viewers. As soon as he stopped everyone went with him. What a joke of a narrative they're trying to push. Fabricate viewership, somehow equate viewers to customers, then watch it all backfire as it turns out nobody wanted to even watch your crap.

[Adexus]

I played it for a bit on launch day and I thought it was really generic and just not that fun to play, but I think it could definitely get a lot better with patches and added content but at the moment I'd definitely rather just play L4D.

Also I feel like it was really rushed to get out before Days Gone.

[Germaximus]

LOL People are pathetic. There's nothing wrong with "“welcome to the multi-store world.” That's a good thing and the reality.

If Steam started having exclusives nobody would even flinch which makes the hate on the Epic Games store even more nonsensical.

[Reefskye]

A good thing for who? Devs and Epic not consumers, Do epic pass any savings on to you? nope, do the devs? nope, Do epic even have a launcher that is even comparable to Origin or uPlay? nope. So why should anyone have to use a sub-par launcher because Epic give betters deals to developers? They riding on the back of their casual game that brought mostly console gamers to play on PC because of Fortnite and no offense but consoles are such a closed platform people buy what ever Sony and Microsoft tell them they have to like PSN/XBOX live, yet they charge between £70-£80 for a standard edition game (as in digital stores). I call that being shafted. So excuse most PC gamers for being unhappy about being shafted, because EPIC business doesn't benefit any consumer on PC.

[jeki]

Steam loyalism makes no sense at all.

[rainslacker]

Steam does have lots of exclusives. They get them just because they have such a dominate position in the market, and for the most part, it's hard for a lot of devs to avoid that customer base. Happens with places like PlayStation as well. They get a lot of games that Xbox never gets just because they have a large consumer base which may buy more types of games.

[jeki]

Fake news. The title 'Epic Games Store Dev' is grossly misleading, and so are the stats.

[YourSixStudios_YT]

This game was going to sink in viewership regardless after two days... so this article was irrelevant. It's a clickbait article trying to capture views from the steam vs epic games controversy.

[xX1NORM1Xx]

Ignoring that pretty much every new game makes top 10 on twitch due to the big streamers all wanting to play new games, having epic store games be top 10 mean literally nothing the epic store or steam for that matter has nothing to do with the quality of the game...

Not to mention games dropping like rocks off the top 10 of twitch is pretty much tradition unless its a pure multiplayer game or an esport game so to even use that as a measurement of success is immensly missleading, and thats coming from a supporter of the epic store.