Epic Games Store is contributing to PC digital sales decline across all platforms (including Steam), according to NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella.
Sony has launched the PSN Store "PlayStation Indies" sale this May 15, and this one is full of smaller titles at a discounted rate.
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Wccftech interviewed Nathan Yu from Inworld AI to discuss the dynamic NPC tech's applications to games as well as potential issues like costs.
its a little ridiculous to say out loud but i do feel the same way lol
I used to buy games on Steam all the time. Got a real good gaming PC too, but once Epic started buying off a bunch of games i wanted to play (Control, Heavy Rain, Shenmue, etc) i started to get really annoyed and started playing console more, and i definitely havent bought as much as i used to on PC. Got Control for PS4 but it was unplayable on there... torrented it, but that has the same issues as buying on EGS in the sense that you dont get all the Steam features. Never actually finished it even though i love Remedy
Its just annoying lol i do hope EGS dies soon
I think that at least for me personally, there are a few things that kinda negatively impacted the PC gaming marketplace.
1) Epic Game's aggressive timed-exclusive deals. Not much needs to be said as this has been talked to death already, but Epic taking all these 3rd-party games as a timed exclusive really hurt the chances of picking some of the games up. I was really interested in a few games, but unfortunately took the Epic year exclusive route and I lost interest in it either because I didn't care for it anymore or that the Epic deal rubbed me the wrong way.
2) Alot of ports released on PC this year ran like dogsh*t, some that come to mind immediately are Red Dead Redemption 2 and Monster Hunter World Iceborne. These games had easily 8+ months to be worked on for PC to make sure it runs smoothly. When they released, it was downright unplayable and broken for majority of people. There is absolute no excuse for that.
3) Publishers getting greedy and making poor decisions. Bethesda is a huge offender here, as several of their games released in 2019 had microtransactions in a single-player game such as RAGE 2 and Wolfenstein Youngblood. Not to mention they are charging a $100 year 1 pass for Fallout 76. It's is utterly stupid and that needs to go away. Other offenders include the Epic Games Store timed exclusivity (which I already mentioned).
4) Delays. Some games were delayed from 2019 to 2020 but that is to be expected.
I'm certainly not speaking for everyone here, only for myself. Some of these things did impact my spending on PC and I actually decided to go back to some older games instead. I'm hoping 2020 will be a better year.
I think this is why i preferred the late 90's and early 2000's of PC gaming, we had Game Spy and Wireplay, both with simple interfaces that allowed you to chat in lobbies and go in servers of games you own easily, and no restrictions with who you can play with.
That and games that had multiplayer would have their own MP interface, like Worms 2 had a lobby where you could create your own room & game and stuff.
Now we are starting to have different places to buy our stuff meaning multiple services running at the same time. I wonder if that means it introduces cross play issues?
Well, it sure helped me save a couple of bucks as I didn't bought any of the games that they got the exclusive rights to.
Capitalism. Steam needs to compete to affect the market in another direction