• Captain Poofter
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    969 months ago

    It’s so cool how they’re shedding employees when their game store doesn’t even have basic features like product reviews

    • @Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I really don’t understand how people still hang on to defending EGS. It’s been shit since release, it’s still missing basic features years later, and it’s been found doing tons of shady shit.

      I’m all for more competition in these spaces, because, you know, competition pushes the companies to one up each other and build compelling features. But EGS is just blatantly missing shit and is explicitly user-hostile by buying exclusivity to their vastly inferior platform. Steam hasn’t had to react at all because they’re still so far ahead, and Epic is just fucking trolling users by forcing them onto their platform without working cloud saves or even non-buggy installs.

      The irony that they flag-wave “user choice” while doing this just totally baffles me.

    • @Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      -19 months ago

      Maybe giving away games every Thursday is hurting them /s.

      I hope that stays 100% of my library with them is all the free games. My bought games are on Steam.

    • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      -249 months ago

      Oh no! Having to check reviews elsewhere! The agony! How did people live before Steam having reviews on their platform? 😱

      • Captain Poofter
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        79 months ago

        Okay, so where do I go to leave a review on steam for a game that I’ve played on the epic store, smart ass?

        • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          What?

          That’s completely idiotic.

          Leave your reviews wherever you want and check your reviews wherever you want, there’s tons of websites to do so, you don’t need to leave your reviews where you own the game.

          Fucking hell, what you guys want is for Steam to have an absolute monopoly over everything related to PC video games! Here’s hoping no one ever takes the helm off Valve and makes decisions you disagree with because we’ll be stuck without any alternatives if it were only for you guys!

          How old is Gaben? 60? He’s obese and has been for ages? Yeah bud, I don’t want to be a bringer of bad news but I wouldn’t expect him to be in control for the next 15 years!

          • Captain Poofter
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            59 months ago

            You literally can’t leave a review on steam unless you purchase the product. So your solution for me is to rebuy a game I already own just to leave a review? You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Enjoy your devil’s advocacy because that’s all it is.

            • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              -89 months ago

              Is Steam the only place you’re able to leave a review? The answer is no. Just leave your reviews elsewhere.

              That’s probably the worst argument you could come up with.

              • Captain Poofter
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                79 months ago

                So your solution for a massively profitable company that’s laying off employees, is to instead of implementing a feature the user’s request, just shirk the paying customers desires and leave it up to some third party website? What if I don’t want a review of the game in general, what if I want a performance review of the game as it runs through that specific launcher? I don’t believe that you believe that review sections in stores aren’t useful. I think you’re just being a contrarian. And I think it’s very strange You’re going to bat so hard for a company that doesn’t give two shits about you, but have fun with all your disagreeing with everyone I’m sure you’re getting quite the high.

                • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                  -69 months ago

                  You mentioned having product reviews as a “basic feature” they should be working on instead of laying off employees, I’m pointing out how ridiculous it is to consider that a necessary feature and how ridiculous it is that you’re complaining that you can’t leave reviews on Steam unless you own the game there when there are plenty of other places where you can leave your reviews.

                  I’m only disagreeing with people who have idiotic arguments against a product I consider perfectly acceptable.

  • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)
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    559 months ago

    fuck whoever originally owned bandcamp for selling it to epic. I have a really bad feeling about them selling it to a music licensing firm. I’m wondering if a lot of musicians are going to find a change in TOS that signs copyright over to songtradr or something.

    • Hot Saucerman
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      149 months ago

      Seriously, this fucking sucks. So likely to see all the good things about Bandcamp disappear.

    • @CeruleanRuin
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      39 months ago

      If they fold, will I even be able to access the games at all anymore?

      • MeanEYE
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        179 months ago

        Doubt they are folding. It’s probably one of those “fire these people so we have bigger income on next quarterly report” kind of schemes.

        • @float@feddit.de
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          19 months ago

          Maybe someone’s bonus depends on it. Someone who’ll probably move to the next company for the next quarter.

          • MeanEYE
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            19 months ago

            Or that. There are certain CEOs who give themselves millions in bonuses after firing 5000 developers, then complain they can’t find good workers.

      • @mateomaui@reddthat.com
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        39 months ago

        I doubt they’ll fold anytime soon, but they’ll probably cut back spending where they can, and the writing on the wall is already there based on the quality of the free games offered lately. Next week is like “Overcooked: Cannibal Edition”

        • Cat without eyebrows
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          29 months ago

          My husband was a producer at epic for 8 years. He got cut yesterday. We’re not even exercising our stock options, imho tim is spiraling and epic isn’t going anywhere good. Going to the supreme court isn’t cheap and then there’s that abandoned mall they bought 🤷‍♀️

          • @mateomaui@reddthat.com
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            29 months ago

            I’m very sorry to hear your husband (and you) got the short end of all of this, I hope he can find a position with another company soon!

  • ono
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    169 months ago

    I stopped using Bandcamp when Epic bought them. Looks like they’ve sold it to Songtradr, who also bought 7digital (another music store that offered DRM-free FLAC files).

    I’ve never heard of Songtradr. Does anyone have info on their history or ethics? I would love to have Bandcamp back as an artist-friendly, customer-friendly, relatively independent source of music, but I don’t want to get my hopes up.

    • Chaotic Entropy
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      9 months ago

      https://rocknerd.co.uk/2023/09/28/bandcamp-has-been-sold-to-songtradr/

      They’re making quite a lot of acquisitions, despite Bandcamp unionising earlier this year. It’s one of the biggest licencing companies in the world, so it probably won’t be great for the current services of Bandcamp when Songtradr wants to start monetising its users more meaningfully to make back the acquisition cost and break even.

      Maybe good growth, maybe an attempt to gauge users as deep as possible before they just shutter the company. Could go either way.

    • Synapse
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      29 months ago

      I had no idea Bandcamp belonged to Epic Games ! To this day it’s my favorite platform to buy music.

  • @SteveDinn@lemmy.ca
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    149 months ago

    I could honestly care less about the video games, but the Bandcamp news is devastating. Is there anywhere else where you can buy lossless DRM-free music?

  • @bobman@unilem.org
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    9 months ago

    I don’t really have any sympathy for people working for epic.

    They knew what they were getting into.

    • @GhostMutt@lemmy.zip
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      69 months ago

      I know a few people who work for Epic games, and generally they are treated incredibly well. Good pay, good benefits, still able to work from home… Their experience has been pretty much all positive.

      However, Epic has been hemorrhaging money for a few years now. As successful as the Unreal Engine and Fortnite are, they’ve aquired half a dozen companies over the last few years, and offer an insane amount of free content between the Epic Games Store and the Unreal marketplace. They they acquire exclusives for their platform, they host tournaments with prize pools in the millions, and they have been trying to build a strong reputation as a service for gamers and developers that treats them well. It never seemed to balance out though, probably because people just were never really into buying games from them.

      I truly don’t get the people that outright hate them though, even for their exclusivity grabs. I also might be mildly biased since I know how much worse devs are treated at other companies.

      • @bobman@unilem.org
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        9 months ago

        Really? I’ve heard Epic Games employees described as just ‘bodies.’

        I believe the quote was something like, “I don’t care, just get us more bodies” to work on fortnite. James Stephanie Sterling did a video on it.

        I’m not sure who you’ve been talking to, but your entire post reads like corporate bullshit. Epic sucks because their service is worse than Steam and tries to convince people like you it’s not.

        Hemorrhaging money? What the fuck? Have you seen how much people are making at Epic? Dev says the pay is good, what do you think his higher ups are getting paid?

        Like, only a legitimate fool would think Epic ‘hemorrhaging money’ is any cause for concern. No, any inconsistencies in where money is going stems solely from who they’re paying. I.e. people doing as little work as possible while making as much money as possible.

        Sorry this needs to be explained to you, but I truly think you have been taken for a ride. If not, then you’re trying to take others for one.

        Gonna block you now though, brother. After reading your post, I don’t believe you have anything to offer me and are just going to double-down on Epic being a company worth supporting. See ya.

        • @GhostMutt@lemmy.zip
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          19 months ago

          There’s nothing quite like making an emotional, incendiary response to a good faith comment and then blocking the person while acting as if you are morally superior.

          Perhaps in the future, should you ever unblock me and see this comment, you’ll consider an alternative perspective as an opportunity to change your mind and not as some sort of conflict.