Epic Games Store - 88% split goes to devs

Well I said they’re not a rookie. I am making the assumption that a season player in the market is mostly making rational decisions at this point. You’re just making a different assumption. Epic is unproven. I don’t have a reason to believe their assumptions are better. There are, after all, other storefronts that believed they could do it, beat steam or at least stand toe to toe with them… those assumptions have been largely inaccurate.

I mean competition is a good thing here. I might not care and am just the one to voice that frankly that the devs pocket more, others might not say it, but their voting with dollars do, but if Steam has to respond to competing factors, usually good. But… the fact Epic can weather it because of Fornite, well that might not last forever.

Heck, the fact they have such a cash cow did make me smile for am moment because I think they’re in a good position to ride it out if Steam tries to squash them but long-term… Steam can have a sale tomorrow and people will buy a bunch games they don’t’ really want, may not play for years if at all and there are just not many places that have that kind of following. That’s hard to beat, not impossible, but hard. Giving a devs a bigger cut, unless they actually pull out of Steam… that’s would be a big leap of faith. Maybe they’ll do it but then again we’re back to the forced to use instead of the get to.

Yet somehow I am not buying games on Origin.

I would really like to know how much money (if any) EA is giving up by not releasing on Steam. They have to be getting lower sales than they would have otherwise, while writing it off as an investment in the platform (and getting their 30% back).

To answer my own question partially, it looks like Ubisoft used to have Uplay exclusives but not any more – which means that even a 0% cut wasn’t worth it for them to miss out on Steam numbers.

IIRC they’ve also done things like launch only on Uplay to get the full cut on the early sales, and then add the game to Steam a month or two later for the long tail of sales.

Which of course they wouldn’t do if they could figure out how to get people to actually shop their store and not just their games.

It’s not brain surgery, they could do any or all of the stuff I posted earlier in the thread and people would come. But all of those things cut into their revenue, and both EA and Ubisoft doesn’t really care about beating Steam, they just don’t want to pay out that 30% cut.

Yeah, Switch already has a News page that you can sub/unsub by game that works like this. I think it will be more useful than the automated new articles that Steam pulls up from god knows where now for all games in your library. It’s not like Epic is forcing you to subscribe and use a global feed with desktop notifications.

Blops4 sold better on Battlenet than any CoD ever has on Steam.

Yeah, it’s a mess. Steam has less than zero interest in doing any moderation, and game makers frequently lack the resources to do it themselves. What you usually end up with is an unpoliced cesspool.

Yeah, both are similarly pursuing game streaming in an effort to cut out the console platform holders to save that same 30%.

I think Epic is actually being super smart in recognizing that Fortnite’s success may not last into perpetuity. It’s funny how many companies doom themselves by assuming their sudden windfall will never end. Epic is investing in a major business that can be evergreen so they are even better positioned as a business even if Fortnite falls off the map overnight.

So this just happened: https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/hades/home

Supergiant’s new game, early access exclusive on Epic’s store.

I also noticed on their coming soon area, that Journey is coming to PC apparently.

And there is, in my book, their killer app.

I am 100% interested in anything Supergiant makes.

The store is getting hammered. The funny thing is if you go to the game site playhades.com the Epic widget shows the game as “free” for a second until the price is able to load in.

Hard to argue with a free game offer every two weeks, that’ll certainly help keep the store fresh in people’s memories as each new offer hits the news sites, bargain forums\reddit, etc.

Dauntless announced for Epic Games Store. No Steam logo in sight.

Google says Dauntless is a free ARPG? No mention of Epic store?

Has anyone seen whether “Free” for the free game every two weeks means free permanently (if you grab it then) or free just for those weeks? Seems like a pretty huge difference, and I haven’t seen it spelled out anywhere.

Good question, though the fact that the Epic Games news release mentioned Epic funding these free releases out of their own pocket would suggest that it might be the limited time availability free to keep kind of deal. I guess we’ll ultimately find out when someone clarifies or the time window for Subnautica closes.

“The store will also feature one free game every two weeks throughout 2019. Epic is funding these free releases so you always have something new to come and check out. The first free game will be Subnautica, available from Dec 14th to Dec 27th, followed by Super Meat Boy from Dec 28th to Jan 10th.”

I guess this is where the consumer benefits. Let amazon and epic rain free games on us. At some point discord will have to join the fray so they don’t become irrelevant. Steam will compete with whoever stays relevant.

Damn I’ll take those free games. I don’t mind another installer in the slightest.

Eventually all of gaming will be funded by Fortnite cosmetics and Amazon’s investors.