Epic Games Store - the console war comes to PC

[lycanwarrior]

There was a time when free game giveaways and timed exclusives would've taken the market by storm. In current reality both are pretty whatever.

Game devaluation is a thing, and while the EGS is far from the only culprit, they have taken it to an entire new level. Between that and subscriptions like gamepass, there's a generation growing up for which paying for a game will feel completely alien.

The move from physical to digital copies is also likely a contributor IMHO. Physical products have a tangibility factor that makes them more valuable for a lot people.

On the reddit EGS forums, it is not uncommon for people to complain about the FREE GAMEs that they are getting if it is not AAA

The free giveaways create dependency and entitlement in people, kinda like welfare haha

There's old saying:

"People always want something for nothing"

The corollary to that also equally applies:

"People don't value things that are freely given away"

 

[Mark Richard]

Company invest into making its way into market spending shitload of money to fight with competition. Some codexers are shocked that company doesn't profit from day 1.

Imho they are doing it right. Fornite will last only X amount of time. But established games store will bring profits for decades.

At this point it still seems like an uphill battle. There was a time when exclusives could win the field single-handed, but in this case they should've been one piece in a multi pronged attack, their effectiveness maximized with a supported charge. I thought the whole point was for the store to sell exclusives, and exclusives to sell the store, but they've taken so long in providing dirt basic functionality. The list of features still curiously absent from the Epic Store includes a shopping cart and gifting, both of which would primarily benefit Epic themselves and have a tangible impact on profits. Every other business has a robust pipeline to keep the cash flowing, and here's Epic running themselves ragged to scoop up loose change while wearing boxing gloves.

 

[flabbyjack]

most of the games they give away are trash and the ones that aren't are missing DLCs aka the other 60% of the game

For the first year, the free games were bangin. I got:
GTA 5
RollerCoaster Tycooon 3
Galactic Civilizations 3
Total War: Troy
Civilization 6
The Talos Principle
FTL
Borderlands 2
ARK
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Darksiders 2
Just Cause 4
All 3 Shadowrun Games (Can't remember if this was free)
Tons of shovelware

ofc now its mostly trash.

 

[cvv]

Galactic Civilizations 3
Civilization 6

These two are p. much worthless without the mountain range of DLCs and expansions.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[ultimanecat]

Some of these self-owns, man...

-Paid $12 per new EGS sign up giving away indie darling Celeste.
-Cost Epic nearly as much to give away Subnautica as it did to give away the entire Batman Arkham collection.
-If you divide the amount paid to a developer/publisher by the number of copies claimed, you get developers earning anywhere from around 30 cents a copy all the way down to pennies.

Chart doesn’t include most of the biggest AAA giveaways. For indies, it seems like you’re lucky to earn a couple hundred grand to be given away on EGS.

 

[Cross]

Chart doesn’t include most of the biggest AAA giveaways. For indies, it seems like you’re lucky to earn a couple hundred grand to be given away on EGS.

Lucky would be getting close to a million for an indie game that came out half a decade ago, which is the case for a few of the titles listed. Inside for 800k, Enter the Gungeon for 700k.

 

[Perkel]

Some of these self-owns, man...

Epic made apparently (recently leaked from court case) about $9 billion in first 2 years on Fortnite. This means the "self owns" you are talking about are basically nothing in their eyes.

Nine fucking billions. And those are just 2 first years, it doesn't count rest.

Those self own are basically jump change for them.

 

[Wunderbar]

Nine fucking billions. And those are just 2 first years, it doesn't count rest.

it doesn't count the rest because Fortnite makes less with each passing year. It made less than 2 billions in 2019, and something tells me it made even less in 2020 due to the game being removed from applestore.

 

[Perkel]

it doesn't count the rest because Fortnite makes less with each passing year. It made less than 2 billions in 2019, and something tells me it made even less in 2020 due to the game being removed from applestore.

Dude $2 billion is still more than any other game released in same year not counting mobile/microgames. $2 billion is enough money to make 10 GTA5s. Which is why $9 in 2 years was completely insane.

Those 3 extra zeroes at the end of million really makes a difference

 

[Wunderbar]

it doesn't count the rest because Fortnite makes less with each passing year. It made less than 2 billions in 2019, and something tells me it made even less in 2020 due to the game being removed from applestore.

Dude $2 billion is still more than any other game released in same year not counting mobile/microgames. $2 billion is enough money to make 10 GTA5s.

Those 3 extra zeroes at the end of million really makes a difference:

they know they can't just live off Fortnite and Unreal engine for eternity, that's why they've made EGS. The problem is that instead of making EGS actually good they are just bribing indie devs and greedy publishers, and it seems like this strategy doesn't work. No one buys stuff from EGS except for certain weirdos like you, everyone either ignore it and wait for a delayed Steam release, or register only to claim freebies.

Epic: "creates a shit store and makes industry worse by bribing and buying exclusivity deals"
EGS: "underperforms anyway"
Perkel: "who cares if it underperforms, the company still makes a ton of money! stupid steamtards hurr durr"

 

[Venser]

I'd like to know how much they paid for GTAV

 

[Lord Commissar Alexer]

They really should just make Fortnite 2.

 

[Perkel]

Epic: "creates a shit store and makes industry worse by bribing and buying exclusivity deals"
EGS: "underperforms anyway"
Perkel: "who cares if it underperforms, the company still makes a ton of money! stupid steamtards hurr durr"

lol "underperforms" by compared to what ?

Epic so far is the only successful competition Steam has that managed to make milions of users even download their client. All rest is basically no competition.

If you look closely at their numbers you see that some of their free games increased their UNIQUE new accounts by something like 5-8% of total base. Find me any company and give them choice to increase amount of people looking at them by 8% just by spending say 500k. They will be lining up like crazy.

Moreover old people might not change easily their tastes but young people do. For them difference between Steam and Epic is like between getting for free games and not getting them. Why would you even use Steam if you don't have library of games there ? They are playing the long game and they have money for it.

After 5 years of promos those young people will not even look at steam because they will be at the same place you are. Library full of games in Epic store and all their friends in it vs steam garbage store that gives you nothing and no one is there.

I have young brother around 14. For him and his friends steam basically doesn't exist anymore. Most of his games are in Epic store and he constantly uses it because wait for it... people actually like free games and Epic delivers WEEKLY.

so yeah steamtards be steamtards and all of that.

 

[Perkel]

Steam sooner or later will have to compete. I will be awesome to watch you when they will start to offer free games or do some crazy promos.

You will be seething in your shoping cart as proper steamtard.

I'd like to know how much they paid for GTAV

Probably not that much.

Rockstart makes shitload of money on micros and if you consider Fornite can do 9B then GTA5 on those sharkcard sprobably is doing even more than that. So the 150mln copies sold is basically nothing right now compared to micro money.

So the more copies they push like that they more micro people buy.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Perkel's young brother ("around 14", it's normal to not know your brother's age, all you need to know is that egs is doing khraaazeeey numbers, ok) doesn't use steam.

It's over for steamtards.

OVER!

 

[Perkel]

Perkel's young brother ("around 14", it's normal to not know your brother's age, all you need to know is that egs is doing khraaazeeey numbers, ok) doesn't use steam.

It's over for steamtards.

OVER!

^^

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Perkel]

I really wonder about 2020 numbers. 2018 numbers were basically start of store which didn't even had proper store layout and everything was made via duct tape.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

metro 2033: $0?

 

[Ismaul]

metro 2033: $0?

paid in vodka

 

[Perkel]

metro 2033: $0?

I think exodus was exclusive to Epic which means they had separate deal for that.

 

[ultimanecat]

metro 2033: $0?

Not sure why it’s on the chart but they probably included a 2033 giveaway when they made their deal for Exodus.

I know the documents are court-related but this isn’t laid out to make much sense. So for BL3, Epic guaranteed Take-Two $80 mil in sales, and also gave them $20 mil just for taking the deal, and contributed $15 mil to marketing the game...

...and then states a net revenue for Epic of $9.2 mil after their cut of 12% of 77 mil sales on the store. So, actually, Epic only lost $26 mil on the BL3 deal! (after you factor in that Epic spent $35 mil to sweeten the pot and advertise the game for Take-Two) If you do the math, Epic paid around $30 per new account sign-up from BL3, so assuming every one of those new accounts spends at least $250 on EGS in the future and never claims more free shit or coupons, they’re well on their way to making money on this deal.

 

[Perkel]

...and then states a net revenue for Epic of $9.2 mil after their cut of 12% of 77 mil sales on the store. So, actually, Epic only lost $26 mil on the BL3 deal! (after you factor in that Epic spent $35 mil to sweeten the pot and advertise the game for Take-Two) If you do the math, Epic paid around $30 per new account sign-up from BL3, so assuming every one of those new accounts spends at least $250 on EGS in the future and never claims more free shit or coupons, they’re well on their way to making money on this deal.

By far the biggest point of it is to make people use their store. Because that is the real problem when it comes to consumers. Free games are fine but you are talking about older games that someone might not actually want.

On other hand new "exclusive" game like BD3 forces people to use their store. Once they commit "sin" not using Steam once whole "steam is my only store" goes away much like someone buying second console after first instantly loses fanboy in them.

That is the unaccounted thing here that matters the most. It is not just new accounts but mind share. Once people start to use Epic store Steam instantly loses its "default" store that gives them the most users and releases.

Epic openly said that there will be more "exclusives" coming and free games. It is clear watching numbers that this is the way to go if you want to compete with Steam.

 

[Shadowfang]

Thanks to Epic I didn't have to pirate Tranny to try it until I was bored to death with it and I can also claim that even though I own POE I never played it since the BETA.