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[CyberPanda]

Remedy’s Control is an absolutely amazing game. Still, a lot of PC fans were put off the moment 505 Games revealed that the game would be coming exclusively on the Epic Games Store. However, today we have a glimpse at the amount that Epic Games paid for that exclusivity deal.

According to Digital Bros, the parent company of 505 Games, Epic Games paid them 9.49 million euro by June 30th. Moreover, 55% of that payment went to 505 Games.
Now there is a chance that this amount of money is not solely for Control’s exclusivity deal. For instance, the report does not specifically mention Control. Taking a look at the Epic Games Store, we can see four games from 505 Games. These are: Control, ABZU, Last Day of June and Journey to the Savage Planet. Let’s also not forget that ABZU and Last Day of June were offered for free on EGS a while back.

You can find the full statement from Digital Bros here.

So yeah, it appears that this offer was too good for 505 Games and Digital Bros to pass up. This also shows how much money Epic Games is willing to pay for exclusivity deals. Therefore, we are really curious about the amount of money that Epic Games paid for Borderlands 3.

Now since Borderlands 3 and Control have sold well on EGS (at least according to their publishers), we can assume that Epic Games will secure more exclusivity deals. So yeah, it will be interesting to see what other triple-A games will now ditch Steam over EGS.

UPDATE:
Digital Bros has included an additional revenue table in its report. In this table, we can clearly see that the company received 9.49 million euro only for Control. Do note that by June 30th, Control wasn’t out. Therefore, Epic Games paid that huge amount for Control’s exclusivity deal.

Report: Epic Games paid 9.49 million euro to Digital Bros/505 Games for exclusivity deals [UPDATE: Only for Control]

According to Digital Bros, the parent company of 505 Games, Epic Games paid them 9.49 million euro by June 30th. Moreover, 55% of that payment went to 505 Games.

www.dsogaming.com

 

[GHG]

With figures like these you can't blame small/mid size development studios and publishers for selling out.

But still, fuck Epic. These fuckers still can't even get their launcher in order, it's been nothing but broken promises.

 

[Deleted member 471617]

Intelligent move by 505 Games to take the $10m just for the PC version which would most likely be the lowest selling version anyway so to get $10m upfront which basically covers 1/3rd of the game's cost. Reviews have been mostly positive but sales seem to be low so again, intelligent decision by 505 Games to take the $10m upfront as I would have done the same exact thing simply because it's the better business decision as opposed to not taking the deal, the game flopping in sales and losing money.

 

[Sentenza]

With some quick math, you get that while Epic would need to sell more or less than 1,5 millions of full priced copies (60 bucks with a 12% share on each) to recoup the investment, Remedy could have done more than that by selling roughly 350K-400k on Steam at half that price, which was definitely feasible.

I get that the safety net makes Remedy sleep well at night, but you can also wonder if it was worth it. Also, let's not pretend they got out billionaires from this deal. It's the kind of deal in Italy we'd describe as "pochi, maledetti e subito", which as a concept you can (very) roughly translate as "few damn (safe) money, right here right now".

P.S. In before Randy Pitchford on twitter: "Control is selling fifteen million copies right now".

 

[LOLCats]

If its a year of exclusivity, i couldn't imagine a small dev not taking such a deal.

 

[ethomaz]

That is a good help to cover cost of development.

Digital Bros/505 are right... that way they can take more risk without bankrupt.

 

[Sentenza]

If its a year of exclusivity, i couldn't imagine a small dev not taking such a deal.

Well, you can be assured it will be a lot less for a "small dev" with a small title and the exact amount gets negotiated on a title-by-title basis.
Not just an educated guess either. Sweeney openly confirmed it.

It's still temping, without a doubt, because while it doesn't pave your way to success (we are talking about an upfront payment on projected sales, not a gift), it will let your company pay the bills and keep the wheels spinning.

 

[lukilladog]

And this is how you eliminate the small competitors in the market.

 

[down 2 orth]

Not such a great deal. Epic paid 9+ mil, but ResetEra got the exclusive.

 

[Graciaus]

Terrible deal for Epic but the publisher makes out.

 

[Caffeine]

higher than I thought was assuming 4 million the publisher won lol.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Why would you pay 9 million for something that won't even sell in your platform?

 

[Kenpachii]

Why would you pay 9 million for something that won't even sell in your platform?

To get people on your platform. And cover as many different games as possible.

And for people talking about selling out, microsoft and sony already do this for ages. Or do you think devs just choose there platform because of good feelings.

 

[dead_lighter]

How much epic must have paid ubisoft for big games like division2? 90millions?

 

[Explosive Zombie]

That's anywhere from a third to half their production budget taken care of instantly. And since every sale nets them more money than selling on Steam they might be doing okay despite the game not doing incredibly well.

 

[Kadayi]

How much epic must have paid ubisoft for big games like division2? 90millions?

I think Ubisofts approach was one of going to EGS to get more people to buy direct from Uplay because generally given the choice of buy from Steam (with Uplay added) or buy from Uplay direct most seasoned gamers were still doing the former, but the plain truth of the matter is Uplay has no real feature sets either (because they're cheap and won't invest in them). Aligning with EGS is merely a way for them to make Uplay direct more appealing. and also pimp their overpriced Uplay+ ($15 a month? Get fucked).

 

[Woo-Fu]

I kind of want to jump 10 years into the future and see if all the money spent buying exclusives worked or if it was one of the stupidest gambles in videogame history.

 

[nemiroff]

That's a lot of money.. For a game like Control (not that visible in the market) it's more or less a no brainer for the publisher.

I still don't have that filth on my computer btw, and it feels really good.

I wonder whether this whole mess is going to make for a tangible comeback of piracy or not.

 

[Explosive Zombie]

That's a lot of money.. For a game like Control (not that visible in the market) it's more or less a no brainer for the publisher.

I still don't have that filth on my computer btw, and it feels really good.

I wonder whether this whole mess is going to make for a tangible comeback of piracy or not.

Why so we can get more aggressive denuvo implementation, or games made for consoles more often and then poorly ported to PC? A PC gamer is clearly his own worst enemy.

 

[smbu2000]

Well it does help to get more people on the platform.
I just signed up for the EGS in order to get my copy of Control. I got it through Nvidia's promotion (receive Control and Wolfenstein Youngblood) for buying a new RTX Graphics Card or laptop with an RTX card included.

I wasn't using EGS, but the game download code that I received from Nvidia was a code redeemable on the EGS, so I had signup to redeem it.

 

[Gamezone]

And for how long can they keep spending such amounts before actually having to improve the store client with features?

 

[Oddvintagechap]

I love it. Love it even more when a indie developer rejects it for brownie points.

 

[Caffeine]

I kind of want to jump 10 years into the future and see if all the money spent buying exclusives worked or if it was one of the stupidest gambles in videogame history.

I think it will end up like uplay and origin and just exist. at some point the fortnite money will stop, free games will stop, paid for exclusives will stop they will most likely start increasing the take from 12% to 15%, and they will probably only have ~20% of the pc market. While everyone else continues to use gog and steam. In all that time they still wont have their user features roadmap complete.

 

[MMaRsu]

jesus chist

 

[Screamer-RSA]

Control didn’t even reach top 20 sold all platforms combined.

Mokaping your good looking actress and unsexyfying her really paid off.