No. They could have taken a look at what their competition does and start from there.
When I’d want to sell a new phone I sell one that has festures of a common phone these days. What I don’t do is start with a brick of a phone and say “Please buy it, I have to play catch-up.”
I was just pointing out that it wasn’t a good comparison because you can’t change the physical limitations of an object over the air, while a software can be updated from being barebone to being full of features overnight. Just look at Steam on release vs today. Sure EGS could/should have included more features on release, but these things can be added and once it included the basic functionalities to allow people to purchase, install and launch games it was a gamble between leaving money on the table by pushing the release back and losing customers that would be angry enough not to come back because of what was to be added at a later date.
As I mentioned elsewhere, better to release a product that has the necessary features to start having an income and then add extra features vs releasing a product full of extra features at a much later date and have to troubleshoot everything at once.
MVP in this market doesn’t mean “make an interface that can sell games” because plenty of those existed alongside Steam and they all died: Discord’s store, Direct2Play, etc… Even now many publishers who left Steam are coming back because the shift to their own launchers went very poorly. Why? Because no one wants to have 6+ launchers.
You need to either be more than just a storefront and launcher, or offer something Steam doesn’t. GoG did the second by selling old games Steam just doesn’t have. To do the first, you’d have to build an integration with other services… like GoG Galaxy. Huh imagine that, Steam’s only competition that has lasted is actually trying to do more than just be a store.
It didn’t but creating a new Steam costs money and it’s better to release a working product that doesn’t have all the features you want it to have to start bringing in money while continuing to update it instead of waiting even longer only to have even more features to troubleshoot when the product releases while still bringing in the same amount of money.
That is true for all the community driven stuff like forums and mods, but laying the groundwork and including basic features would’ve been easier when starting from scratch.
Steam is a laggy ass launcher that is infected with Google malware.
Even if you choose to not load up the store it is still taking up a gig of you RAM.
The same way you don’t have to view the store on Steam, you don’t have to view the store on Epic or any other launcher they are all seperate.
Steam has the worst UI of most launchers and thier games page is basically an extention of thier store page. Literally 80% of a games page is devoted to bullshit and DLC and thing people want like achievements gets a 5% little block off to the side.
Id be more inclined to use the launcher if it was more like steams. The epic launcher feels more like a store than a library of my games.
Exactly.
The only time I ever look at the store tab in Steam is when there’s a sale on.
Otherwise, all I ever see and use is my library.
Steam has been improved over decades, epic has to play catch-up
No. They could have taken a look at what their competition does and start from there. When I’d want to sell a new phone I sell one that has festures of a common phone these days. What I don’t do is start with a brick of a phone and say “Please buy it, I have to play catch-up.”
Bad example as the phone can’t be physically updated as time goes.
Perfectly fine example. You are just dying on the hill of your pretty stupid argument.
Tell me how you change a flip phone into a smart phone with over the air updates, please.
Also it wasn’t me who made the original argument.
You are missing the point or that is a strawman. The argument ist that it is stupid not to learn from others.
To use your example: It is stupid to not release a smartphone in the first place.
I was just pointing out that it wasn’t a good comparison because you can’t change the physical limitations of an object over the air, while a software can be updated from being barebone to being full of features overnight. Just look at Steam on release vs today. Sure EGS could/should have included more features on release, but these things can be added and once it included the basic functionalities to allow people to purchase, install and launch games it was a gamble between leaving money on the table by pushing the release back and losing customers that would be angry enough not to come back because of what was to be added at a later date.
It makes sense if you interpretate “a brick of a phone” as not many software features. Fewer functions is more brick like.
Steam pretty much invented online gaming retail.
Any competitor can and should learn from that instead of starting over from scratch.
As I mentioned elsewhere, better to release a product that has the necessary features to start having an income and then add extra features vs releasing a product full of extra features at a much later date and have to troubleshoot everything at once.
MVP in this market doesn’t mean “make an interface that can sell games” because plenty of those existed alongside Steam and they all died: Discord’s store, Direct2Play, etc… Even now many publishers who left Steam are coming back because the shift to their own launchers went very poorly. Why? Because no one wants to have 6+ launchers.
You need to either be more than just a storefront and launcher, or offer something Steam doesn’t. GoG did the second by selling old games Steam just doesn’t have. To do the first, you’d have to build an integration with other services… like GoG Galaxy. Huh imagine that, Steam’s only competition that has lasted is actually trying to do more than just be a store.
Yes and no.
It’s not like Epic had to start where Steam started.
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It didn’t but creating a new Steam costs money and it’s better to release a working product that doesn’t have all the features you want it to have to start bringing in money while continuing to update it instead of waiting even longer only to have even more features to troubleshoot when the product releases while still bringing in the same amount of money.
And they focused on the wrong things right out of the gate
The wrong things? You would have wanted them to start with cards, forums, achievements but no way to install the games after buying them or something?
That is true for all the community driven stuff like forums and mods, but laying the groundwork and including basic features would’ve been easier when starting from scratch.
Even the first versions of steam that came with hl2 back in the day were more usable than epic’s trash launcher.
Steam is a laggy ass launcher that is infected with Google malware.
Even if you choose to not load up the store it is still taking up a gig of you RAM.
The same way you don’t have to view the store on Steam, you don’t have to view the store on Epic or any other launcher they are all seperate.
Steam has the worst UI of most launchers and thier games page is basically an extention of thier store page. Literally 80% of a games page is devoted to bullshit and DLC and thing people want like achievements gets a 5% little block off to the side.
Steam has the worst UI of all the launchers? You’re saying it’s worse than Epic, UPlay, Microsoft Store/Xbox, Origin/EA app, Bethesda, Battle.net?
You have terrible reading comprehension.
I said Steam has a worse UI than most of the other launchers.
Yes. Epic and Xbox are far superior. EA and Battle net are both better as well. Uplay stinks.
I hope you don’t work in UX because you’ve got shit taste.
Mad cause wrong. Cope.