Larxia
Member
You're right, they will play the game even if it's not on steam, but 99% of the time that means pirating it, not getting it on epic. Not sure that's really good for the game.
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Epic Games Store launches First Run program allowing devs to get 100% revenue in exchange for exclusivity
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- News Business Game Dev
NeverYouMind
Member
That is exactly the problem. I can get behind something like GoG for having DRM free games or MS Store having Gamepass rental service and crossplay features between PC and console, but Epic Games Store is a restrictive mess with no meaningful features.
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FingerBang
Member
Good. I buy most of my games on the Epic Store cause I can usually get them for cheaper. I welcome this and don't mind having multiple stores
The hate never ceases to amaze me, though
The hate never ceases to amaze me, though
JimboJones
Member
EGS roadmap
They have a roadmap of features being implemented and future planned stuff, the only thing on there that looks remotely useful is really basic stuff like revamping the social side of things (by actually having one!) and gifting.
I see they still don't let you move stuff from one drive to another without redownloading lol.
b0uncyfr0
Member
Great for Epic.
Why are ppl still shitting on Epic? i dont quite get it. Steam was in the same position 15 years ago right? Just because they've solidified themselves and were questionably first doesnt mean we have to shit on the competition thats trying to break into the market..
And speaking on value, fuck steam, they havent given me any free games - Epic has given me 25 pretty good games.
Why are ppl still shitting on Epic? i dont quite get it. Steam was in the same position 15 years ago right? Just because they've solidified themselves and were questionably first doesnt mean we have to shit on the competition thats trying to break into the market..
And speaking on value, fuck steam, they havent given me any free games - Epic has given me 25 pretty good games.
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PaintTinJr
Member
As someone that was in the same situation as
AGRacing
getting an early Steam account, - but I never bothered building a games library on Steam - whenever I use steam it feels like it is the same as the Epic game store.- that I signed up for to try UE dev tools. I know that isn't the way die hard digital PC gamers feel about steam, but I would say outside of that 10m niche, very few consumers care about the difference in the storefront features between Steam/Epic and care more about getting a game on the most favourable terms, which is what I'm seeing as the anecdotal behaviour of my three young nephews.
Long-term Epic getting a decent market share is better than the status quo IMO, at least Epic are at the centre of the technology that actually helps creatives make new games each generation on all platforms. Stream are really just a self appointed tax collector - that never existed for the handful of disc based PC games I still have in my retro cupboard - so if a few games get a tax free launch to help split the tax collection between two stores - that in a world of zero disc piracy wouldn't exist - I don't think that is a bad thing.
Guilty_AI
Member
At this point i think they'll just make money with f2p stuff there and all the shitty NFT scam games they let creep into their store.
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Pejo
Member
I spent some time thinking about this today, and I think another poster mentioned it - this will almost always cost EGS less than their old exclusivity guaranteed money. Especially for Indies. If a title gets no exposure/no one wants to buy it/it just doesn't sell, EGS loses very little in this situation. Before, they were paying out untold amounts based on some sort of deal whether or not the titles did well, now they just have the cost for storage, ingress/egress, and whatever upkeep costs.
If I were an indie dev, this new plan would look even less attractive than the original. I bet S-E is eyeing it up like the short sighted greedy fucks that they are.
If I were an indie dev, this new plan would look even less attractive than the original. I bet S-E is eyeing it up like the short sighted greedy fucks that they are.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
They stuck a shopping cart in a little while back.
They also added user reviews, where they cherry pick which ones to allow.
Guilty_AI
Member
This exclusive strategy doesn't work as well with storefronts. Its just as easy to abandon the platform as it is to adopt it, as unlike with consoles they're free.
Say tons of players do go there to get Silksong in a hypothetical exclusivity scenario, then what? Will they miraculously keep buying everything else there? No, they'll just go back to steam afterwards.
Most of the adoption of EGS will happen because of popular F2P games and it'll grow from there, exactly how it happened with Steam. EGS wouldn't have half of its users if it weren't for Fortnite.
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JimboJones
Member
I've actually bought some of the games on steam that i have got for free on EGS because the steam ecosystem and features are so much better lol.
Guilty_AI
Member
I initially opened an account there to collect free games, but after a few months i just closed it cause i realized i wouldn't play 99% of the stuff they'd be giving out, and i had no other reason to use it.
Then i bought the Subnautica on Steam, the only game they gave out at the time i wanted to play.
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Silver Wattle
Gold Member
Spend the money on improving your store software and features, exclusives don't mean shit if we don't want to install your shit in the first place.
Gamezone
Gold Member
We didn't really expect much from digital distribution and PC launches 15 years ago. Valve wasn't late to the party, but Epic is. More rapid store improvements are therefor to be expected, but not much has happened. Epic is paying publishers and developers for exclusives, basically forcing people into a poor launcher with less features.
I like Epic's idea of giving more back to the developers, but for this to work people have to be buying games from the EGS. If this continues it will be more beneficial to just pay Valve 30% of the revenue and sell more.
RoboFu
One of the green rats
Because all other “ launchers “ are super shitty and it has been proven time and time again… just look it up on google or something.
Puscifer
Member
No matter how many coupons they throw at me that can make a serious difference in buying from steam I just want free shit, they can have it.
b0uncyfr0
Member
Ok, that's where we diagree. I dont beleive Epic is forcing you to do anything. Its a video game and businesses's are gonna do business- if you dont like the game and where its sold, then dont buy it.
It really is that simple, you get to vote with your wallet.
poodaddy
Member
I agree except GOG is also great. All other stores are garbage though.
poodaddy
Member
Valve is a private company. Ya can't buy what's not for sale, and trust me, Gabe Newell is never gonna sell. The dude has no need for anyone's money, he's richer than our wildest dreams.
Kataploom
Gold Member
I agree with the business part, therefore I don't buy the games, so do many others, which is the reason why Ubisoft and Square are coming back to Steam.
There's a reason why publishers prefer to pay more: They get more sales, therefore the money they spend is justified, that's what's called investment, and that's the reason why Apple, as much as I don't like them, are in the right to put their rules in their store. You don't build a business out of "justice" and shit, you do so by providing value to others and user base is a big one.
There's a misconception on how capitalism and meritocracy works, it's not about being the best, it's about providing the best value for others, the more people seeing value in your proposition, the more money you make, specially if you make others make money themselves. Valve happens to be the best for users and the one that provides the best value to publishers. They're just unreachable at this point and use their position with responsibility.
UniformDeliverance
Member
I mean. Look at how well Diablo 4 sold on pc, Fortnite on epic. I’m sure some people would pirate.. but 99%? Common man. Look outside the hardcore crowd for a moment, I genuinely do not think your average casual pc gamer cares that much about having to install another launcher.
If they did, then how do we explain the success of blizzard games? Riot? Game pass for pc? People go where they need to go to get the games they want to play. Some might choose to steal that game (amazing how brazenly we justify theft of a product simply because you have to download a launcher) but most? Most will just download epic and play the darn game.
Exclusives sell platforms. You buy a switch to play Zelda. You buy a PlayStation to play final fantasy 16. If epic wants to compete with steam, they are doing exactly what gamers have told them they need to do to incentivize adoption of their platform. A platform that, unlike PlayStation or switch, is completely free to download and use.
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DemonGamerTTT
Member
VS 70% of a lot.
Thy are doing this because they can't afford to pay the "pre sales guarantee" anymore...
They should really leave this exclusivity bullshit to consoles...
Larxia
Member
Yeah ok no, we don't justify piracy simply because of having to use another launcher, you seem to be confused about what's the actual issue.
I bought Overwatch on Battle.net back then, I bought games on Origin when they weren't on Steam, hell, I even used to go on the epic launcher to play Paragon, when the epic launcher was just a launcher for Unreal Engine and Epic's own games.
Games being exclusives to platforms is always annoying, but it's at least more understandable when it's publishers making their OWN games exclusives to their OWN platforms.
The problem with Epic is that this isn't what they do. They have a terrible launcher, with an experience much worse than what you get on Steam, and they try to buy all the exclusives they can to force people to use their launcher, games that are originally not their own. It's completely different and that's what most of us hate about Epic, their anti consumer practice.
I wouldn't really have a problem with Epic if it was only for their own published games, but this isn't the case, they try to fragment the market and it's incredibly annoying.
A lot of people, like me, don't want to buy on Epic because we disagree with these practices, not just because "it's another launcher".
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CartesianMan
Member
This is very good deal for developers.
DemonGamerTTT
Member
No one is complaining about first party exclusivity most people see steam as a general store for games.u getting away
If a game isn't first party it should be available everywhere... Exclusivity is a way to hinder competition what they should really do if they are acting in a good faith is to compete with price because that's simple how economics works, but instead they are artificially trying to gain market share...
Epic offer no advantage whatsoever to the customer their servide is shit and they know that.
Only a retard would advocate in favor of a company that's literally introducing artificial barriers that reduce the value customers receive from their purchases instead of trying to really compete.
Shake Your Rump
Member
Well, yeah. I mean, if some run down grocery store on the other side of town, where I have to pay to unlock a cart and strictly use self-checkout, bought the exclusive rights to sell yogurt, I would be pissed off. The fact that my local store with amenities exclusively sells bananas, frozen peas, and soy sauce is not a factor.
Holammer
Member
It seems the initial wave of EGS First Run games dropped. Bringing out the big guns right away, the THUNDER!
I tried to find YT trailers for the games with no luck.
Via Lewie Procter on Twitter.
I tried to find YT trailers for the games with no luck.
Via Lewie Procter on Twitter.
CuteFaceJay
Member
I guess Fortnite is having issues keeping the lights on :|
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Pejo
Member
Well I haven't spent a bunch of time combing through the details on Timmy's bribes, but for titles like these, wouldn't it technically be cheaper for him to give 100% of revenue for the first year instead of whatever previous money-hat deal he had going on? Like giving these guys 50k up front for a year of exclusivity previously vs. giving them nothing and losing nothing for a year now.
Either way, I'm surprised there aren't a few S-E games on there already. They seem eager and ready to pucker up and suck whatever butthole will give them exclusivity bux.
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
Console style tactics don't work in the PC world. Epic and Steam run on the same platform of Windows. You know what a windows user can do? Pirate.
either that, or when Cherry Team sees the terrible sales of Silksong due to EGS exclusivity, they eventually release it on Steam and get a major second wind.
The Playstation example works since there's no easy way to play the latest Playstation exclusives without buying a Playstation 5. It's an entirely different piece of hardware with games made specifically for it. Not so much on PC where all storefronts run on the same OS and have the files out for anyone to do whatever they please with them.
Shake Your Rump
Member
For fucks sake. It’s one thing to direct pay for exclusivity. At least they could make the claim that it is a curated selection of exclusive games. This is just straight up anti-consumer with zero benefits for the customer.
Hot5pur
Member
I generally like competition and don't love the idea of Steam having a monopoly of sorts, but on the other hand Epic has not done anything to compete except for exclusives or giving away games. This is not innovative in the space of launchers/storefronts. It basically doesn't need to exist and that money would have been better invested into new game development.
StereoVsn
Member
I think the storefront plus free games cost them around $2bil so far. If they spent that money on a decent studio or two and produced games for 3rd parties that would have been a far more lucrative business.
I guess Tim Epic would rather sell half the company to Tencent instead and waste even more cash because any day he is going to grab what was it, 50% of PC market?
FearlessBelgian
Member
Cool why? As the others say, 70% of something > 100% of nothing...
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AndrewRyan
Member
Any game launching on Epic needs to be 75% off on Steam before I consider buying, and usually wait for 90% off. Same for Denuvo. Sometimes that means waiting several years or never playing. All perfectly fine.
DaGwaphics
Member
It will be interesting to see if this hurts the developers long term, if it is a wash, or if it benefits them.
They only get to launch a game once and get the full exposure from the gaming media, influencers, general gamer word of mouth, etc. Is it a benefit to get that extra 30% at the expense of limiting your exposure to a less popular store during this critical window, or do you net more by taking the 70% and setting up shop in the big store?
Personally, I don't get the hate for the different PC stores, competition here would only be good for gamers. If the store popularity evened out a bit, the focus of competition would shift away from the developers and to gamers, they'd have to compete harder for us (potentially better sales, etc.).
They only get to launch a game once and get the full exposure from the gaming media, influencers, general gamer word of mouth, etc. Is it a benefit to get that extra 30% at the expense of limiting your exposure to a less popular store during this critical window, or do you net more by taking the 70% and setting up shop in the big store?
Personally, I don't get the hate for the different PC stores, competition here would only be good for gamers. If the store popularity evened out a bit, the focus of competition would shift away from the developers and to gamers, they'd have to compete harder for us (potentially better sales, etc.).
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Magic Carpet
Member
Developers should just sell directly to me. You get 100 percent. Just set up shop in the abandoned Bed Bath and Beyond building. I'll be there.