Epic Games Store - 88% split goes to devs

Oxygen Not Included also removed from the sale now.

Some users in that thread were saying that Bloodlines 2 could be picked up for $5 in some regions. I could see why they didn’t want to participate, it really screws over people that pre-ordered from their own store or other platforms.

bummer, that is the one game I was going to maybe pick up on this sale when I got home

Epic is working on the impulse purchase angle. Launch a sale with deep discounts then start pulling games from the store every couple of hours.

Bonus points for pulling a whole publisher like Ubisoft. :-)

It seems like they didn’t tell the devs, or at least they didn’t tell the devs about the $10 credit on Epic. Devs are nervous about setting a much lower price precedent, for good reason.

I wonder if some of the preorders were pulled to avoid violating contracts with other platforms…

Indeed. Epic presumably thought them covering the sale difference would make it OK, but anyone part of the Steam Sale race to the bottom knows there are long term effects to doing deep discounts and who knows how long Epic is going to cover it.

They specifically said the devs were told in advance.

  1. Anyone who managed to buy the game at a discount - will receive it at a discount.
  2. The game will return to the store.
  3. We fully compensate the discount to the publisher, they do not lose money.
  4. The publisher was informed in advance about the sale mechanism and was aware of its conditions.

edit: or not! I was wrong.

Okay, regarding point 4.
I was sure that Paradox was aware of the sale mechanism. After a little investigation, it turned out that I was wrong.

Epic gonna epic, I guess.
In any case, $10 off of a new release isn’t so much. The problem I think some devs are seeing is the regional pricing. If a game is only $15 in some parts of the world, and then you subtract $10, you get the game only for $5…

But they should know how the regional pricing works at this point.

Sounds like a great deal!

I’m actually a bit surprised that Sergey, with all his Steam data, didn’t anticipate that some devs/pubs would not want their titles devalued right out of the gate.

Well, so glad I picked this up earlier today, seems like the price for Hades just raised to $14.99. WTF?!?

Supply and Demand obviously.

So far I picked up Hades, John Wick Hex, and Ashen (for $35, not too bad), debating on Heavy Rain and Beyond two Souls…

BTW, Ashen actually plays pretty well with controller, I like it so far.

Ugh, I was all ready for that to be my first purchase on the Epic store, but I guess it was too good to be true.

Not checking with the studios first was a fundamental miscalculation on their part. It isn’t so much about the race to the bottom as that their potential customers may prefer Steam, and be disinclined to purchase the game on Steam for $60 when Epic is selling it for $50. And then just choose not to buy it in the launch window at all, instead waiting for discounts.

Supergiant had to raise the base price of the game to $25 (and remove the 15% sale discount), when it sold for $20 max before to get that $14.99 equilibrium. That’s going to create some weird optics.

Yeah, probably would have been better for Epic to say “Buy any game $14.99+ and we’ll add a $10 credit to your account” instead to avoid all of these weird optics.

Yes, it’s quite good if you are in the mood for that type of game:

https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/operencia-zens-turn-based-hungarian-folklore-inspired-blobber

Yeah, wtf, I thought the prices on the store didn’t include the 10 bucks off.

Also, I was going to buy Hades, but now it is 15, it was 8 bucks earlier.

I think I will hold off on this until they figure out how to do a sale first. I am tempted by outward, but the steam sale is coming up at the end of June, and I am sure the prices then will be about the same.

Yeah, but Epic is covering the difference, so if you buy now the developers will make way more than waiting for the same price on Steam…