The real question is whether that’s true. I hope it is, but I don’t trust that it is. I’m certainly not going to financially incentivize Epic to continue its current behavior, which means I won’t be buying anything through their store or installing their questionable launcher. I have very little regard for Steam, and I’d love to see a better option come along. This isn’t that.
I don’t know about price setting on the pub side - probably depends on your publisher relationship. Either way though, the cost for this initiative is on the side of the stores, not the pub/dev - so the pub wouldn’t increase price to assist the store either. And even if you’re in a pub/dev relationship, a better cut from the store means you earn out your advance and get to royalty faster.
I mean time will tell - Epic has publicly stated that it’s their intent, and I have no reason to doubt them, given the ongoing expense and PR drag.
All that said, I’m all for people making choices about what and where they buy based on their preferences. I don’t fault anyone for doing so.
Epic don’t have a great track record on the factual accuracy of their public statements, lately. Time will tell, and I’d like to think it’s not financially viable to keep this up, but they’ve got very deep pockets.
Unrelated to this mess, by the way, loved the first Rebel Galaxy. I look forward to playing the sequel one of these days.
If the store takes off and does the required numbers, then they stop. If it doesn’t take off, eventually you stop throwing good money after bad. shrug I think either way, it ends. It just makes the most sense.
I look forward to releasing the dang thing one of these days!
I know a lot of people have said they are exiting the discussion or muting this thread. I don’t blame them because it certainly has been passionate. That said, I hope we don’t lose too many voices or perspectives (especially ones I disagree with) because the diversity of opinion has been great and this really is one of the best places to discuss the disruption. The bonus of developers chiming in has been insightful.
Many other places on the web have turned into echo chambers for one position or another but I have appreciated the wide spectrum present here.
Agree. I am enjoying the differing opinions here and the in depth discussions. I know I have learnt a lot about other perspectives, I hope others have as well.
Theoretically a lower cut to the store means lower prices for gamers. Thats just basic market theory. The devs costs have not changed, so their break even point is now at a lower price. In theory, the incumbent has been enjoying ‘abnormal’ profits, and the competition is now fixing this market error.
Note that ‘abnormal’ is an economic term, not my opinion one way or the other :D
It’s nothing like that simple. Basic market theory says games should be free if they replace each other, and sold at the revenue maximising price if they don’t replace each other at all. Note that neither of these involves the cost of production. The true state is somewhere in the middle, and basic market theory isn’t a great model for this market anyway.
I wish that was true for all games, sadly not for The Sinking City, listed as $59.99 on EPIC. I have no doubt if it was on Steam consumers could have found pre-order deals for $45-50 from 3rd party stores for a Steam key.
Yes, but the publishers know they can get $60 for a game, regardless of their costs, so will charge that much. New games seem to be quite inelastic.
in theory new games will be made available by competing devs who can afford to sell them for less, because of epics cut.
I am NOT SAYING THIS WILL HAPPEN. I am saying thats economic theory of a free market. Source: My LSE education :D
Sure, but if I remember correctly, that theory only works if everyone is selling the exact same product in a perfect world. Say grain in a small geographic area. It doesn’t really work on something like games. With that theory, Apple should have went out of business 20 years ago.
Pricing theory is more about supply and demand, not costs. I’m unaware that any business lowers prices because its costs go down, as opposed to doing so due to competitive pressures or a strategic goal of increasing market share (I am not including public utilities).
Cost still comes into play, at least in a regular marrket, but then price elasticity also comes into play. Games are weird, when they first come out there is that core audience that seems to be willing to pay anything for a game. But after a month it drops off a cliff and they are trying to get everyone else to buy it and still make a profit, that’s where costs comes into it.
On the other hand, while Epic has opened the doors for other companies to resell EGS game codes it appears that Sony is shutting ti down and only allowing you to buy digital games via PSN:
That sounds an awful lot like a financial incentive to make your game exclusive to Steam. Which has been my point all along.
What a load of horseshit.
What financial incentive? You’re paying for that in the 30% you are giving up.
And when Steam started up, that 30% cut was a lot cheaper than managing all those services yourself. It probably still is for a smaller developer.
Elaborate.
No, that’s paying 30% for a service. Maybe the service is overpriced, but that’s for the market to decide. Is Epic providing the same service for 12%?