Am 25.08.22 um 20:51 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
> The thinking is that, once that hurdle is past, once the client is
> installed, THEN they'll buy stuff. There's a reason, after all, you
> have to scroll three or four pages down the store page before you see
> the free games on Thursday; they want you to see all the stuff you can
> buy first.
Did work out well, didn´t it. Epic overestimated the stupidty of the
average people big time!
A first in history!

On 27/08/2022 12:06, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

>> I'm not sure that your average criminal can be used as a
>> representative sample of the average intelligence of a PC gamer!
>>
> They are a representative sample of "humans" so....  Seriously, most of
> the calls made to 911 have nothing to do with a crime.  And many of the
> ones that do, do so only because the individuals involved are so dumb
> that they commit a crime without intent.
>

They aren't representative though as people don't phone up the police to
say I saw this but I'm not so stupid as to think it's a crime so I'm not
reporting it. The second example is also self-selecting as you've only
got dumb people in the sample. What about all the other people who don't
do that?

On 28/08/2022 10:22, Werner P. wrote:
> Am 25.08.22 um 20:51 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
>> The thinking is that, once that hurdle is past, once the client is
>> installed, THEN they'll buy stuff. There's a reason, after all, you
>> have to scroll three or four pages down the store page before you see
>> the free games on Thursday; they want you to see all the stuff you can
>> buy first.
> Did work out well, didn´t it. Epic overestimated the stupidty of the
> average people big time!
> A first in history!
>

I can understand the idea of this is a good way of getting people to
come to the store but there seems very little in-place after that to
actually get people to make it there digital store of choice.

On 8/28/2022 3:16 AM, JAB wrote:
> On 27/08/2022 12:06, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
>>> I'm not sure that your average criminal can be used as a
>>> representative sample of the average intelligence of a PC gamer!
>>>
>> They are a representative sample of "humans" so....  Seriously, most
>> of the calls made to 911 have nothing to do with a crime.  And many of
>> the ones that do, do so only because the individuals involved are so
>> dumb that they commit a crime without intent.
>>
>
> They aren't representative though as people don't phone up the police to
> say I saw this but I'm not so stupid as to think it's a crime so I'm not
> reporting it. The second example is also self-selecting as you've only
> got dumb people in the sample. What about all the other people who don't
> do that?
>
The "dumb people sample" is a significant percentage of the total
population.

I'm not clear on who the "People" are in your question but I think most
likely they are either the half of the population above average in
intelligence or are the people who don't call 911 when they see
something stupid that isn't a crime or ends in need of emergency medical
assistance.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Sun, 28 Aug 2022 11:32:10 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>On 28/08/2022 10:22, Werner P. wrote:
>> Am 25.08.22 um 20:51 schrieb Spalls Hurgenson:
>>> The thinking is that, once that hurdle is past, once the client is
>>> installed, THEN they'll buy stuff. There's a reason, after all, you
>>> have to scroll three or four pages down the store page before you see
>>> the free games on Thursday; they want you to see all the stuff you can
>>> buy first.
>> Did work out well, didn´t it. Epic overestimated the stupidty of the
>> average people big time!
>> A first in history!
>>
>
>I can understand the idea of this is a good way of getting people to
>come to the store but there seems very little in-place after that to
>actually get people to make it there digital store of choice.

Yeah, Epic made two big blunders:

1) They didn't provide a service people actually wanted. Their client
was a mess, their prices were competitive but not significantly lower
than could be found elsewhere, and it divided gamers from their
friends by being yet-another-service.

2) They seriously misunderstood the market into which they were
entering, and their attitude and responses to that community's
criticisms hurt them far more than it helped.

The former fault is understandable. The prices of their games, after
all, were not entirely under their control; even their massive
Fortnite war chest wouldn't have allowed them to subsidize all the
games for very long. They did their best - $10USD vouchers and lower
costs to developers helped - but in the end Epic had very little
leeway there.

Similarly, a major complaint from gamers is that they didn't want to
switch to another service because all their games - and friends - were
already on Steam; Epic worked really hard to mitigate this; what do
you think all those free games are about. Over the years Epic has
given away literally hundreds of free games, and - if you've been
halfway attentive (and greedy ;-) - it's likely your Epic library
rivals your Steam library in number of games.* This makes it more
likely that, if a friend says, "hey, wanna go play some GTA5?" that
odds are in favor of you both firing up Epic as Steam.

But Epic dropped the ball with its client. It's fun to point out how
EGS didn't even have a shopping cart when it launched, but that's just
because it's indicative of how feature-poor the software was even when
compared to UPlay or Origin. When put up against Steam - and,
remember, Epic vocally insisted Valve was their main competitor - the
client was so lacking it became a meme. This, again, was a survivable
problem... except Epic shot themselves in the foot by (more or less)
blowing off gamer's concerns by - instead of actually improving the
client - instead pushing out a developmental planning list instead.**

But these failings all tie into Epic's fundamental mis-reading of the
PC gaming market. I disagree with the assertion that this was a result
of the company thinking PC Gamers were 'stupid' (or, if they did, I
don't think Epic thought PC gamers were any more stupid than any other
customer ;-). Rather, I think that - for whatever reason - they chose
marketing tactics that were a poor fit for the audience.

Epic has always maintained a practiced 'too cool for you' brashness,
an arrogant assumption of superiority over its competitors. This
attitude goes back decades - think back to the era of Quake vs. Unreal
- and was honed during its heyday on the XBox360. And - let's be frank
- that attitude worked exceptionally well for them back then. Whether
it was because they were seen as a plucky underdog (during the early
Unreal engine days) or because it fit well with the secondary
education/university-aged, largely male audience that comprised the
core of their players (during the XBox360 era), their excessive
braggadocio was a winning formula.

Why did Epic choose this strategy? Why did they try to burst into the
market with the self-stated arrogance of taking down Valve? I can't
answer that. I suspect it was because it was considered part of their
brand, and its decades of success made people think it would work
everywhere. But the PC audience tends to skew older, and what sold
well in the 90s doesn't ring as favorably in the 2020s.***

I think it might be because Epic has - for a long time - been in its
own little pocket of gaming; first on XBox360, later surrounded by an
adulating horde of Fortnite fans. Its CEO's lack of business acumen -
and being someone who came to age in the aforementioned 90s - also
meant he'd look more favorably on any marketing strategy that used
bold assertions. A desire to impress developers likely also skewed
their plans. But however it came about, Epic's choice was disagreeable
to many PC gamers.

Like Epic's lackluster client, this was a survivable mistake. The
correct option would be to do some market research and change
direction. But Epic instead doubled-down, and looked ever more the
arrogant bully rather than the upstart company making good. In fact,
it managed to make VALVE look like an underdog, despite it being an
almost monopolistic market-leader. They could have backed away from
the widely-disliked 'exclusives' scheme; they could have focused more
on bring players features rather than trying to bribe them****, they
could have stopped with the endless law-suits against competitors...
but they stuck to the course they'd chosen.

And now its lack of success and same ham-fisted handling of developers
is working against it on the internal front.

None of Epic's tactics are bad; they're just misguided and
mis-prioritized. Epic's biggest fault is that - whether out of
arrogance, or incorrect research data, or because they have an
overarching strategy we aren't aware of***** - it hasn't listened to
what its customers - be they the people buying the games or the ones
making them - have demanded of it.

-------------------
* unless you're one of those nutcases who has thousands of games on
Steam. ;-)
** As an example of how long Epic ignored criticisms about its
client's shortcomings, it took THREE YEARS before the much-maligned
shopping cart was added.
*** seriously, go back and watch some commercials from the 90s and see
if many don't make you cringe
**** bribery works, but it doesn't make you loved
***** Epic is doing some amazing stuff selling its tech to Hollywood.
Perhaps the whole 'games store' thing is just a diversion intended to
raise awareness of the company to make its non-game divisions more
recognizable and valuable? Who knows.

On 28/08/2022 17:54, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 8/28/2022 3:16 AM, JAB wrote:
>> On 27/08/2022 12:06, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>
>>>> I'm not sure that your average criminal can be used as a
>>>> representative sample of the average intelligence of a PC gamer!
>>>>
>>> They are a representative sample of "humans" so....  Seriously, most
>>> of the calls made to 911 have nothing to do with a crime.  And many
>>> of the ones that do, do so only because the individuals involved are
>>> so dumb that they commit a crime without intent.
>>>
>>
>> They aren't representative though as people don't phone up the police
>> to say I saw this but I'm not so stupid as to think it's a crime so
>> I'm not reporting it. The second example is also self-selecting as
>> you've only got dumb people in the sample. What about all the other
>> people who don't do that?
>>
> The "dumb people sample" is a significant percentage of the total
> population.
>
> I'm not clear on who the "People" are in your question but I think most
> likely they are either the half of the population above average in
> intelligence or are the people who don't call 911 when they see
> something stupid that isn't a crime or ends in need of emergency medical
> assistance.
>

I'm sorry but it's just not as you're using a self-selecting sample to
then go to what seems that half the population is dumb.

Am 28.08.22 um 12:32 schrieb JAB:
>
> I can understand the idea of this is a good way of getting people to
> come to the store but there seems very little in-place after that to
> actually get people to make it there digital store of choice.
Well for that they were 10 years too late. You can either be better or
first. Epic so far has been neither. They try to bully their way in.

The problem Epic has, also they promised lower costs compared to Steam
for the studios selling there. However in order to do that they cut down
on services steam provides within that margin. That goes even so far,
that they basically
forced the game developers to use the Steam forums as support forums for
Epic.
It is even a wonder they have implemented cloud saves, which is a pretty
big money drain which costs gog a ton of money.