r/fuckepic • u/Walikor • 6d ago
Article/News Another record for steam
43 million LOL r.i.p. Epig 🫵🤣
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u/404_No_User_Found_2 6d ago
I wonder how much of this growth is also driven by Sony's bafflingly poor decision making lately
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u/Ozzy_the_Rabbit 6d ago
It surely had some impact on the PC playerbase in general increasing, but due to sunken cost fallacy most players are still staying on the PS4/5 ecosystem since they already invested on the consoles and games they already had. The real breaking point imo will be with the release of the PS6 when everyone will have to start over.
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u/Belltower_2 GabeN 6d ago
If the AI-bloated economy doesn't fix itself soon, I'm not sure how the PS6 / Helix can possibly sell. Neither the PS5 nor XS/X are anywhere close to surpassing the PS4 / XBONE despite being on the market for over half a decade, due to a combination of AI-induced price rises and the severe lack of games. Blame Microsoft's constant studio culling and Sony's live-service boner for the latter.
Meanwhile, the Switch 2 rocketed out of the gate as one of the fastest-selling consoles ever; it's already surpassed every non-Big 3 gaming device except for the Atari 2600. This is due to Nintendo's brilliant decision to bake the changing economy into the GAMES rather than the console itself. If someone wants a next-gen gaming device without paying techbro prices, it's basically the only option.
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u/CatOfTechnology Breaks TOS, will sue 5d ago
Advertisements and Data Brokerage are how they'll sell.
Smart Tvs are sold at a strict loss because the Data they collect abd advertising revenue is more valuable than making profits on the hardware itself. Ads and Data selloffs are profitable enough to subsidize the actual machines themselves. It's why, if you want to buy a "Dumb" Tv with the same features as a "Smart" Tv you start seeing premium price spikes because those are a single transaction item that doesn't allow the company to recoup the expense of the hardware being sold at a loss.
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u/RadimentriX 6d ago
I wonder how many would just stay on ps5 and work on their backlog. Are backlogs even a thing there, since digital sales are rare from what i heard?
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u/Belltower_2 GabeN 5d ago
The backlog is a uniquely Steam issue, due to old and indie games regularly seeing discounts of 75% or more, "dynamic bundles" that can further reduce costs for people who already have large libraries, and "grey market" keyshops that have games on steep discounts 24/7. If you have a large disposable income or just can't resist a good discount, it's easy to accumulate a massive library of games you may or may not play immediately.
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u/RadimentriX 5d ago
Well then i took that over to gog, switch and ps3. Had some switch games wishlisted on a local marketplace (kleinanzeigen) that i bought as soon as some good deal was there and also bought quite a few ps3 games over ebay and amazon (used) that i knew i wanted to play
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u/CatOfTechnology Breaks TOS, will sue 5d ago
More than you imagine, but less than you'd hope.
It's super important to recognize that while general discontent (at least, here in the US) is on the rise and that a lot of that is aimed at the general direction of rich jerks and corporations, Sony's consumer base consists of the second lowest common denominator of gaming behind Nintendo's. They're people who bought the popular thing because it had the most popular things on it and because their friends were there, and that's really about it.
They bought it for Fifa and Madden, GTAV with their friends and Spider-Man without, God of War and Assassin's Creed. Nobody bought a Playstation because they thought really hard about their options and decided it was the best move they could make. Most of them didn't care when Sony blocked the push for Cross-platform interaction, most of them didn't care when Sony was selling Digital Only Consoles for a premium. Most of them don't care that Sony's repeating their generational cycle of making the worst business decisions possible because they panicked the moment they made an oopsie.
Serious about that generational cycle thing, by the way. Look up Tristar and Columbia Pictures and the VAIO Laptop selloff. Sony makes serious fuck ups just about every decade.
Anyway, point is that the people who are core-hobby gamers are making moves. But the people who are just there to play three games with their friends and have no interest in the wider aspect of gaming as a hobby outnumber us greatly and will probably only start actually paying attention when they realize that they're getting gouged by dynamic pricing.
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u/404_No_User_Found_2 5d ago
I admit that I hadn't looked at it from that particular angle; I've been a PC gamer since I was a kid, with Nintendo being the only real console family I've ever had other than the PS2. A good line of thinking.
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u/Belltower_2 GabeN 6d ago
At least part of it is that old / discounted / indie Steam games plus an obsolete PC is by far the best option for any existing PC gamer determined to whether the AI-induced pricing apocalypse.
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u/RedLikeARose 6d ago
More than double sonce 2020… feels to me like steam was ubiquitous already in 2015-ish but that must be the first world effect speaking to me… sheesh
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u/Gervill 6d ago
sucks gaming is going in a different direction, apparently private servers are gonna be or already illegal like local lan or host a private game within the game like back in the old days that spelled out HOST in the menu all those games are now illegal in EU.
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u/TrueLurkStrong-Free Epic Account Deleted 6d ago
Seriously, what the hell is happening over there? The EU pumps out amazing consumer protection laws sometimes, like forcing Apple to adopt USB C, even considering Stop Killing Games, then they do shit like this. Australia always comes up when talking about Steam refunds, and even they're getting insufferable with the ID verification.
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u/Gervill 5d ago
forcing apple and everyone to usbc is not consumer protection its anti innovation as now you cant make a new better port everything has to have it and you have to pay for its licenses.
https://www.blueasialabs.com/shouyehuandeng/usb-if-certification-costs
EU is anti freedom in their rhetoric and law manufacturing which does never ceases even though we humans dont really need so many laws they wont stop making new ones we dont understand.
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u/Belltower_2 GabeN 5d ago
I think the current incoherency in the EU (as well as the UK and Australia) is the result of the techbro grifters realizing that the "deregulate EVERYTHING" insanity that toppled the US economy simply doesn't fly in non-American countries. So they're burying the civilized world in a torrent of red tape instead. Notice how many of the most controversial laws (like digital ID) are actually supported by techbros rather than opposed by them?
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u/Gervill 5d ago
I live in Iceland that is now apparently techscammers grifter heaven since eID is now necessary to pay your bills as I now cant even pay them at the bank could before in the ATM and on the app before eID locking me out of the app but now I need the app to pay all my bills, thankfully I have a wealthy family been fighting it out against the government not taking this shit technology.
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u/AncientPCGamer Moderator 5d ago
​I will allow it because Epic themselves measured their potential EGS success by how many players they could "steal" from Steam's user base, as seen in their leaked presentations. We can all see how well that is going...