Epic Games Store - the console war comes to PC

[Swigen]

Still waiting for the reduced cut to benefit consumers.
If Epic is taking far less why don't the games cost less?

They tried to sell the games cheap and developers publishers cried and cried and cried!!

https://www.pcinvasion.com/multiple-games-remove-epic-games-store-sale-confusion/

 

[Tom Selleck]

I can almost see the broad on the left's whole tit

 

[Alienman]

So close, but still so far away...

 

[DalekFlay]

"Developers getting more money could result in better support and next games" is an idea with merit to it. The problem is you can't ask a consumer to deal with a much worse experience for that vague idea. Improve the client, offer similar sales, build a rep, THEN make that case.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

there's no proof that there's a positive correlation between higher funding and better quality games

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[commie]

I didn't get around to buying Thimbleweed Park and was mildly curious about some walking sim and the Myst-like shit Witness, so Epic was worth signing up for just for the freebies. I don't think I'll ever buy a thing from there, but if they give away occasionally interesting things, I won't say no.

:shrugs:

 

[Paul_cz]

there's no proof that there's a positive correlation between higher funding and better quality games

With shitty companies, sure. But there are good companies that with more money can spend more time making and polishing the game, employing more or better people to make it etc

Sweeney is just infuriating, because eventhough I like the goal of lowering store cuts, the way he goes about it is so fucking annoying and well-poisoning

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I didn't get around to buying Thimbleweed Park and was mildly curious about some walking sim and the Myst-like shit Witness, so Epic was worth signing up for just for the freebies. I don't think I'll ever buy a thing from there, but if they give away occasionally interesting things, I won't say no.

:shrugs:

if you're not the buyer and you're not the seller then you're the product

 

[Reinhardt]

There is exactly one variant of future where i'm installing epic client - if Epic develop decent exclusive game themselves or finance development of decent exclusive game from the start.

So i guess i will never have to install it, yeah.

 

[Reinhardt]

"Developers getting more money could result in better support and next games" is an idea with merit to it

Nigga, they will never have enough money to make good games and offer better support. They will take your money, epic money, cut game to sell dlcs, add microtransactions, loot boxes and will run ads during loading times. Because they can. And it's still not enough.

 

[Gerrard]

Remember when digital game distribution made games cheaper because no manufacture and distribution costs? Me neither.

 

[passerby]

Steam cut is the same as retail manufacture and distribution costs, but it doesn't matter anyway, because the goal of the price point is to maximise revenue and price is determined by what consumers are willing to pay.
It's the only factor that matters for the price of intellectual properties with no replication costs. Any benefit from the lower cut for a consumer can be only indirect in the form of more games, or better production values.

Sweeney is just infuriating, because eventhough I like the goal of lowering store cuts, the way he goes about it is so fucking annoying and well-poisoning

It's the only thing that has any chance of working though.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Steam cut is the same as retail manufacture and distribution costs

lol

 

[Vault Dweller]

Steam cut is the same as retail manufacture and distribution costs....

^ from a 2010 article; the publisher gets $27 out of 60, which is 45%. If the publisher is savvy, he can minimize the returns (copies unsold by a store) and skip the console royalty if it's a PC game, which would increase the cut to 60-65%.

Sweeney is just infuriating, because eventhough I like the goal of lowering store cuts, the way he goes about it is so fucking annoying and well-poisoning

It's the only thing that has any chance of working though.

Worked so well with Metro, eh?

https://www.vg247.com/2019/05/23/metro-exodus-sales-majority-on-consoles/

 

[Black Angel]

Steam cut is the same as retail manufacture and distribution costs,

 

[FeelTheRads]

Remember when digital game distribution made games cheaper because no manufacture and distribution costs? Me neither.

But do you remember when it made games better because developers had more money to put into games?

Oh, right. It didn't.

Steam is supposed to be cheaper than physical distribution, so where is the quality?

What you get instead is shittier and shittier games, and developers still crying that they don't make enough money.

But hey, Steam saved PC gaming, so umm... yeah! Nice way of choosing which bullshit to believe and which not.

 

[Mustawd]

It’s hard to follow what you’re saying because I don’t think you really have a well thought out argument FeelTheRads.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Steamtards claim Epic is speaking bullshit while at the same time babbling bullshit about how Steam saved PC gaming because it was cheaper than physical distribution. Therefore, selective believing in bullshit.

 

[Volrath]

there's no proof that there's a positive correlation between higher funding and better quality games

Quite the opposite really.

 

[Alienman]

Steamtards claim Epic is speaking bullshit while at the same time babbling bullshit about how Steam saved PC gaming because it was cheaper than physical distribution. Therefore, selective believing in bullshit.

We are getting a ton more quality indie games that would probably never see the light of day without Steam.

 

[Mustawd]

Steamtards claim Epic is speaking bullshit while at the same time babbling bullshit about how Steam saved PC gaming because it was cheaper than physical distribution. Therefore, selective believing in bullshit

Steam helped PC gaming in that it allowed indies to easily self publish for the very first time. All the distribution was taken care of by Steam as well as having some assistance with marketing (participating in Steam-wide sales, insight into sales activity, etc).

There are plenty of good indie titles that would not exist were it not for large digital platforms like Steam.

And yes, a lot of it was tied to the cost. For a 30% cut the indie dev can bypass a traditional publisher relationship as long as they are saavy enough to market and project manage effectively.

But more importantly it allows the dev to retain control of every aspect of the product.

Want to keep a game complex/traditional even though it might cost sales? You can do it.

Want to delay release to give yourself a bit more time to polish? It’s up to you.

Want to retain all ownership of IP you have developed? Done.

The downside of course is that you will get an influx of games that are lower than average. But I’ll take that as long as I can keep the games that are more experimental, unique, classic and/or complex than the typically published generic video games intended for a broad audience.

 

[passerby]

^ from a 2010 article; the publisher gets $27 out of 60, which is 45%. If the publisher is savvy, he can minimize the returns (copies unsold by a store) and skip the console royalty if it's a PC game, which would increase the cut to 60-65%.

Retailer Margin + Distribution, Production cost = 19$, 19/60 = 32%, more, or less same as Steam cut, especially for smaller games. If you'd want to count returns for some reason, you should also count steam refunds.
It's also 2010, I suspect that retailer margin is smaller by now, there was an article a year ago, based on data provided by Ubisoft where retail Margin was 20% and logistics/manufacturing was 5%

Worked so well with Metro, eh? https://www.vg247.com/2019/05/23/metro-exodus-sales-majority-on-consoles/

Work in terms of making any significant amount of sales outside of Steam and putting any kind of presure on it. Majority of initial last light sales were on consoles too, until they started to very heavily discount it on Steam sales.
Do I think Metro lost more sales than it gained from Epic exclusivity? Most likely yes. I also said any *chance* of working, I don't expect Epic to succeed.

 

[Mustawd]

It's also 2010, I suspect that retailer margin is smaller by now, there was an article a year ago, based on data provided by Ubisoft where retail Margin was 20% and logistics/manufacturing was 5%

In this case the retailer is Steam, so retailer margin is 30% of the $60, meaning $18, however that also covers distribution costs.

So if you have a $60 game as an indie you’re taking away $35 (assuming $7 in returns), which is much higher than the $27 you traditionally would have with a physical sales model.

Going Origin exclusive also did cost EA lost sales and yet they didn't return.

That says less about the quantity of potential Steam sales and more about they’re overall market for PC. The majority of their sales likely come from consoles anyhow. Their PC sales are likely good enough to not split revenue with Steam, but it’s also not their main audience.

 

[Paul_cz]

It's the only thing that has any chance of working though.

If I was Sweeney I would have spent longer in development of the store and threw actual resources on it so that things like a shopping cart wouldn't take a year to implement. I would have launched it with at least the most crucial features already implemented (forums, cloud saves, reviews, achievements, playtime tracking, profiles, overlay..). I would have paid some companies money to bring more games from console to EGS (they did it apparently with some quantic dream games, but there could be more) that never would have gotten PC version otherwise. I would have funded some games from scratch for the store. I would have come up with some interesting features steam (or any competitors) do not have (because Steam as feature packed as it is, doesn't have everything imaginable quite yet). Throw much nicer interface at it and offer better pricing on games compared to Steam. Voila. People would use the store voluntarily.

Bribing third party developers for exclusives is far from the only thing that could work. Cheaper games and actual value provided to gamers would work wonders.