Except that’s not an accurate metaphor. It’s more like MasterCard built the town themselves with their own money, labor, and resources, complete with an HOA which provides security and upkeep, but requires that their services be used by people who buy a home there, and tell them that in advance, so everybody buying…

The argument was that Epic’s policies are “good for developers.” That argument is flat out false. The fact that you can’t stay on topic on the argument and instead want to shift the blame shows how badly you realize that that is a failed argument. Exclusivity contracts do not benefit developers with publishers, and…

As rogueIndy said, the idea that the devs are the ones that benefit is the point being refuted. It doesn’t matter if it’s because of the publishers, that’s who Epic is making deals with. Not the devs. If Epic actually cared about the devs as they claimed, they could put in contractual stipulations that the devs see…

Yeah, you’re not familiar with the publisher/developer relationship. Devs only benefit as far as their contracts, which generally don’t include such things as “Epic bought exclusivity” as part of it. They get set pay, and maybe a bonus if the game sells well. Even that is frequently turned on them. Publishers are only…

That’s a good question, but so far, nobody has actually tried to offer a better product. Valve has been constantly investing in and improving Steam, offering a wide variety of features. Some of them (like library management) still need more work, but nobody has managed to offer anything better yet. Between the Linux…

You don’t read very well, do you. Larger devs. Those with publishers. Which is most developers. Small developers who aren’t currently being published could see some of that money, but other than them, nobody else benefits except publishers. Certainly not consumers.

Yeah, they did have competition, brick and mortar stores, which were the standard at the time. That’s a high barrier to getting started. Fortnite is still one of the most popular games out there, requiring access to the Epic Store alone would have gotten them a starting audience. Spending a billion dollars on…

Except, y’know, Fortnite, or other Unreal Engine games. That’s how Valve did it, after all.

Nobody wants Valve to love them. They have the better product. So do GOG, itch.io, and Origin.

How did consumers benefit from Epic purchasing exclusives? The prices weren’t any lower, and it certainly wasn’t a better launcher. Heck, larger devs didn’t even benefit; that exclusive cash went straight to their publishers.

Don’t worry, they cover it. The payoff is very, very satisfying.

It’s an issue with the video game version. In the board game, you don’t just have to find the cures, you also have to eradicate the diseases. That extra time difference and managing the diseases in the meantime can mean the difference between victory and defeat. There’s also a lot of tuning available in the game, as…

Because the legal code in question, that includes unusual censorship requirements, was a US invention when Japan was occupied, and is still a part of the legal code today. It’s literally a case of two cultures rubbing up against each other in unusual ways.

Very true. Finding and, when you actually want to, updating. And troubleshooting, and...

It is, though it’s one of those things that could be better. Automatic mod updates can break a stable mod build, as happens in heavily modded games like Bethesda games, or Rimworld, or the like. Finding a steady spot and being able to pause updates would be a good feature to have, amongst others.

It’s telling that they are trying to brute-force themselves in without also dedicating the resources to offer an actual competitive storefront. They claim it’s about being competitive, but they aren’t doing what’s necessary to actually be competitive, which is to say, a storefront that can compete in features and…

So, to address a few things. First, it may be in a better place, but some of those “changes” that are still needed are basic features that you can get, for free, for a web-based storefront. There’s no real excuse for that.

Actually, that cut is an industry standard across all platforms.

Right? It hurts my soul, every time I read it.

The typo bugs me, though.