With Borderlands 4 Set to Ditch Epic Exclusivity, Randy Pitchford Addresses 5-Year-Old Prediction That Steam Would Become a ‘Dying Store’ – IGN
With Borderlands 4 Set to Ditch Epic Exclusivity, Randy Pitchford Addresses 5-Year-Old Prediction That Steam Would Become a ‘Dying Store’ – IGN
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What the hell advantage does he think Epic has to push?
I waited for BL3 to arrive on steam, and by the time it released I didnt care to play it. They went from getting my money, then delaying my money, to not getting it at all. Chivalry 2 was the same way. I’m not splitting up my digital library, especially away from a company with a proven track record. I’m staying with steam or going back to physical media.
Considering borderlands 3 ended with a toooon of fan backlash I’m skeptical as to how good this one will be. Am hoping they finally add tiny tina as a playable character though, with zero references at all to the movie.
> “A lot changed there that was hard to predict
Nothing changed. Epic did get better but not much. Steam hasn’t changed much at all. Same percentages and shit as it was back then. Dude is just a fool.
“I’m not anti-steam, I’m pro competition and a customer too”.
”What steam charges for the services it provides isn’t sufficient”
Sounds like you’re pro-greed though. Competition isn’t buying market share because you’re a bigger company, and you and Epic both fail to realise that. That is inherently anti-consumer and anti-competitive, Steam showed that it won on merit alone, and that there is more to steam than what it offers people who sell their games on steam (although as far as I understand they still offer ALOT) in what they offer to the people who are BUYING games on Steam.
“not pressing its advantage”
what kind of drugs is he doing?
Announcing a new game right after the movie flop is stupid and hilarious at the same time.
On a totally unrelated note, I find it amusing that they decided to try to make a Borderlands movie when the writing in the Borderlands games was imo always the absolute *worst* part of the games.
I bought and played Borderlands because the gameplay loop was fun and the gameplay was fun. I always turned the dialogue audio off because the characters and writing was so fucking annoying.
I guess the story and world building isn’t bad. They’ve got some stuff to work with there, but I hope to God they don’t try to replicate the game’s dialogue and “funny meme humor.”
Randy Pitchford is Cliff Bleszinski but less charismatic.
jUsT beCaUSE mY PRedICTion wAS wRoNG, doEsN’t mEAN I wAS wrOnG!
Literally nothing changed… with Epic. They’re still thinking handing money under the table to devs so their games can rot unplayed in their storefront is a viable strategy. All they did with the free games was cultivate a culture that Epic is not a place to buy things at, but to leech free stuff from.
Steam provides the most viewed PC storefront, ton of infrastructure options, frameworks, and a ton of dev tools as well. Epic provides $ and the chance for your game to be completely forgotten.
What “changed” is Randy seeing that Alan Wake 2 didn’t even break even yet. And in those 5 years he saw EA, Ubisoft, and Activision *come back crawling*. It was now his turn to come back crawling, and he’s done so.
And in the wild case that fuckface reads this, or anyone that thinks the same way: Competition is letting me buy my shit wherever the fuck I want. Provide a competing service, not a hostage situation, I don’t negotiate with terrorists.
One major thing Randy is failing to consider Steam’s public goodwill. Epic doesnt seem to actually care about the customer or their experience, they only care about profit. Public image goes a LONG way.
Randy is just greedy. Of course he’s going to root for the company that gave him 180 million for exclusivity over a more democratic company like Steam.
To be fair, if you told me that the epic game store wouldn’t change at all or get much better in five years i would say thats absurd.
However, epic is still asscheeks. Steam hardly changed at all.
It seemed clear that steam would always win but both stores just sitting on their hands seems suspect.
What I don’t think Randy ever took grasp of are the convenience and buy-in factors.
I already had 100% of my games on Steam. I was bought into the platform. It was installed already, I knew the interface well, I was used to it, so Epic was a hard sale. Especially making something Epic exclusive. Now I have to manage multiple game stores on my desktop? Nah, I’ll just skip those games.
The same with Netflix. Once companies got greedy, pulled their shows from Netflix and started their own streaming services, I just noped out of watching those shows… or I sailed the high seas for them. If you don’t like it, you can put it back on Netflix or go fuck yourself. I’m not paying $100 a month in half a dozen streaming services to watch all the shows I want to watch, or just to have The Office playing in the background when I’m doing chores.
There’s sweet-fuck-all I want to watch on The Peacock streaming service other than The Office, so I’m not paying for it, and the same with Borderlands 3. There’s nothing else I want on Epic to go through the hassle of managing a second gaming service.
But then again, this guy is defending Geriatric Park.. I mean The Borderlands movie, so I know he’s not alright to begin with.
Granted not like it was the first game to do it, but having a blast lately replaying BL3 with friends and we’re ALL on different platforms; we have a 4-player party on steam/xbox/PS4/Epic, game quality is great and everyone can use Discord with ease; Like it took decades but cross-platform (at least for Shift-enabled stuff) is pretty seamless!
Fucking Randy…
Christ, Pitchford is so full of shit. Can’t even admit he is wrong when faced with facts.
At least this is confirming no timed exclusiveness bullshit.
Who is Randy Pitchfork?
jeez, this clown couldn’t find his ass with both hands, yet dipshit predictions like this are a dime a dozen. epic game store is still the wish version of steam, and the payout percentages haven’t changed. I guess they have a cart now? welcome to the future, epic. in the meantime, steam keeps the modest share of 30% for basically schooling epic on what a customer enjoys, which are the multitudes of player-focused features like mod/workshop support, screenshot storage, account display customization, proper version management, and a good server backbone. epic are still losers that offer better dev percentages but chirping crickets when it comes to real features that make the transaction process and gaming more enjoyable as a whole.
Lol it’s not
Steam failing would bankrupt the entire pc economy. Unless you got offline copies of all of your games, no one will feel safe with digital companies. I’m going to say it for the PC market sake. Steam is too big to allow it to fail.
His job is to make money, more money better job.
My job as a customer is to spend money where it makes most sense for me, not the seller..
Randy Bitchford is a fucking moron and I recommend everyone letting the BORDERLANDS series die until he no longer has his grubby fucking claws in it.
Tbf epic has done great. He just underestimated the power of gamers with steam Stockholm syndrome. Valve should probably be sued for being a monopoly
I love my epic account. I never buy anything on there and just keep collecting free games.
I hope they see the stats on users like me and it pisses them off. <3 Gabe
“Steam takes too much for what they provide”
A functional friends and chat system, a vast community tab for all the games, big picture mode for a more intuitive UI for console users, Steam controller settings, tons of customization for user profiles, great security with Steam authenticator, constant wallet eating sales for games that users want all the time etc.
Maybe Epic should have more than just “Here take some free games” as their competitive strategy against Steam to gain more users.
This guy is so deluded, I am not a game developer or have any partnership with Epic, it was clear as day even to someone like me that Epic were never going to truly compete with Steam, they are light years behind the advancements Valve take with improving Steam and the systems around it. Look at what Valve has done for the industry since EGS launched and compare it to what EGS have done.
Valve have pushed VR development, developed the flagship VR game, developed the Steam Deck and popularised a new industry of handheld PC’s, turned Linux via proton into a viable alternative to Windows and even providing support for competitive devices.
What’s Epic done? They added a shopping cart, they forced exclusivity for tons of games with bribes that would of done just fine on Steam, they outright bought games and removed them from Steam, went to court a few times all while timmy is patting himself on the back online. The only good thing they have done is free games, everything else was anti consumer.
He should be thanking Valve for even allowing him to keep selling their shit on Steam.
I think the real problem is that gamers are resistant to change. It’s a common design problem with online shooters. Change too much, and people will complain. Change too little, and people will complain. People don’t want to use Epic when all of their games are already on Steam.
Funny thing is, if you buy the game on Steam and click on play, all it will do is open the Epic launcher…