The Outer Worlds goes Epic Games Store-exclusive (also Windows Store)

[Haplo]

Yas, come through Microsoft Store!

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-outer-worlds-and-control-will-launch-on-the-epic-store-not-steam/

quote

The Outer Worlds will also release on the Microsoft Store, but will not appear on other stores on PC for at least a year—that includes Steam.

Guess that's at least an option for me.

Wait and see I guess. But the likelihood of a purchase without an 80% price cut just dropped down a lot.

 

[santino27]

Lower cut of what?

Of the revenues, duh. Whatever Epic offers them instead of Steam's 30%. But they don't need Epic's money up front or "guaranteed sales" or whatnot, that would be absurd.

It's easy to break down:

Steam: first 10M$ - 30%, 10-50M$ - 25%, everything sold after 50M$ mark - 20%, if we assume 2M units on PC half of witch close to full price, we can estimate steam cut at around 25%
Epic: 12% and 5% Unreal licence fee is free for units sold on Epic. So overall it's 18% more profit.

The math works if the market shares are the same. They're not. Steam has 80-85% of the market and Epic has the Fortnite kids, which is why it's trying to lure the players in with these exclusivity deals. I'm sure they will succeed in boosting the number of players but it's absurd to think they can take half the players from Steam. Considering that all the other digital stores handle about 2% of the market, if Epic manages to grab 5 or 10% it will be an unprecedented success but Steam would still vastly outsell them.

On top of that, there is undisclosed exclusivity deal, which probably involves huge unit sales guarantee, paid from Epic pocket, even if the game is a flop.

What's huge? 2 mil? 5? That's 50-100k copies sold on release (i.e. nothing for a AAA release).

Did people assume this was going to be AAA? I was always thinking AA. Despite the pedigree of the creators involved, interviews seemed to make it pretty clear that they're far from AAA budget/team #s.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It looks sufficiently AAA to me and I'm guessing the expectation is to sell over 2 mil copies.

 

[Arulan]

Fuck Epic Games and their bullshit practices. Throwing bags of money to (Let's be honest; In most cases) publishers to fuck over the customer's choice of client/storefront (especially when Steam's features and GOG's DRM-free nature is highly desired) is an awful precedent to set on the PC.

People are joking but it's actually the right thing to buy the game on the Microsoft Store, if you're going to buy it at all.

Or just wait a year. There is no shortage of good games to play, and it'll likely be in a better state then anyway.

 

[Delterius]

Spoiler

 

[Jarpie]

So it's still gonna be on the Windows Store in the first year, too? I guess if you still want this game you can buy it there to really stick it to Tim Sweeney.

Hey TimCain, badler or any other Obsidian dev reading this. Possible way to sweeten the pill - free Steam key for people who buy the game on the Microsoft store. :fabulouslyoptimistic:

They don't need free help with the damage control, they have their own PR-team for it...unless you're getting paid...

 

[Thonius]

Lmao. Epic launcher is a full blown trojan. According to some sites it not only checks for your "friends list" but also scans pretty much every app you got, checks SSL certificates, checks browser settings, system info and some rumors/info include that it installs Unreal version of Fiddler to check on your traffic.
Fuck that noise. I wont even pirate it. :^)
Enjoy your "game" that totally not a botnet you cucks!

Spoiler

 

[Infinitron]

So it's still gonna be on the Windows Store in the first year, too? I guess if you still want this game you can buy it there to really stick it to Tim Sweeney.

Hey TimCain, badler or any other Obsidian dev reading this. Possible way to sweeten the pill - free Steam key for people who buy the game on the Microsoft store. :fabulouslyoptimistic:

They don't need free help with the damage control, they have their own PR-team for it...unless you're getting paid...

Hey, I'm just looking for a way to get people some free shit. Damage control is a bonus.

I was hoping Feargus would at least go up on stage and unveil a new trailer to go along with this announcement, pffft. I guess that tweet is all we're getting.

 

[Duraframe300]

People are joking but it's actually the right thing to buy the game on the Microsoft Store, if you're going to buy it at all.

Pretty much. I can accept the Microsoft store sale as Obsidian is actually first party now. Epic exclusivity is however unforgivable and its still shitty considering what was promised.

 

[Thonius]

Unreal is a fucking honeypot trap :^)
" Oh I see that you want to play vidia and shitpost, but you don"t want to install Epic Trojan? Shame we got some console exclusives here... it would be shameful if they gonna be here, all alone and without players"

 

[undecaf]

That's 60€ saved from this years budget.

It's ultimately a good thing.

 

[Goral]

I wonder what Leo and Tim (really) think about such move. I'm guessing they're not too happy about it but they will spout PR shit to not get fired. I wonder though if the price will be as high a year later as it will be during Epic premiere (my guess is yes).

 

[Strange Fellow]

People are joking but it's actually the right thing to buy the game on the Microsoft Store, if you're going to buy it at all.

Why, again?

 

[razvedchiki]

what where the chances it would be a good game in the first place?

 

[Infinitron]

People are joking but it's actually the right thing to buy the game on the Microsoft Store, if you're going to buy it at all.

Why, again?

Well, assuming you want to buy the game on launch.

It's the right thing to do if you want to ensure as much of your money goes to Obsidian as possible. They're owned by Microsoft so it's the closest thing to buying the game directly from them.

It's definitely the right thing to do if you hate Epic.

If you actually like the Epic Store, or prefer to buy the game from a platform that might end up being objectively better than the Windows Store in terms of features etc, then yeah, what I said is wrong.

 

[Duraframe300]

People are joking but it's actually the right thing to buy the game on the Microsoft Store, if you're going to buy it at all.

Why, again?

Well, assuming you want to buy the game on launch.

It's the right thing to do if you want to ensure as much of your money goes to Obsidian as possible. They're owned by Microsoft so it's the closest thing to buying the game directly from them.

It's definitely the right thing to do if you hate Epic.

If you actually like the Epic Store, or prefer to buy the game from a platform that might end up being objectively better than the Windows Store in terms of features etc, then yeah, what I said is wrong.

The Microsoft store has reviews.

 

[Thonius]

Here's some starting points:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/b0rxdq/epic_game_store_spyware_tracking_and_you/
Totally not spying on you :^)
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/epic-says-its-game-store-is-not-spying-on-you/
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/epic...-your-steam-friends-and-play-history.1473595/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games Owners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Interesting... they just deleted the tweet.

 

[Flou]

Fucking Private Division. After everything that has been said about EGS and the spying it does for the evil overlords, how in the hell do they think this is a good idea? It's a PR nightmare, but as always, it's the developer that takes the hit when casual twats and mouthbreathers who barely know their own name, blame it on the developer. Because understanding the publisher and developer relationship is too hard.

You actually had the public on your side with the game and you stab them in the back when someone throws dollars at you. Whoever came up with this brilliant idea hopefully gets fired when they see the sales data on PC compared to consoles.

Poor Leo&Tim and rest of the team. This is the last thing they needed right now.

 

[CyberWhale]

TBH at this point, I'm starting to doubt that Tencent is actively involved with this whole strategy. No way in Hell does Epic have this much money to waste from Fortnite alone.

 

[Delterius]

TBH at this point, I'm starting to doubt that Tencent is actively involved with this whole strategy. No way in Hell does Epic have this much money to waste from Fortnite alone.

the chinese government is involved

xi jinping himself wishes to control videogames

 

[Belegarsson]

Hey, on the bright side, the upcoming Vampire The Masquerade game still has potential and Paradox doesn't seem to be swayed to dark side yet, right guys?

... right?

 

[Flou]

Hey, on the bright side, the upcoming Vampire The Masquerade game still has potential and Paradox doesn't seem to be swayed to dark side yet, right guys?

... right?

Not, yet. I think their hardcore fans buy everything from their own store and I don't think Epic exclusivity would allow them to sell Steam game from their own store...

 

[passerby]

What's huge [ sales guarantee] ? 2 mil? 5? That's 50-100k copies sold on release (i.e. nothing for a AAA release).

I have no idea, according to Gollop it's enough to sustain his studio operations for years, we can also ussume that higher profile game will receive proportionally higher guarantee.

The math works if the market shares are the same. They're not. Steam has 80-85% of the market and Epic has the Fortnite kids, which is why it's trying to lure the players in with these exclusivity deals. I'm sure they will succeed in boosting the number of players but it's absurd to think they can take half the players from Steam. Considering that all the other digital stores handle about 2% of the market, if Epic manages to grab 5 or 10% it will be an unprecedented success but Steam would still vastly outsell them.

It is like that when people have an option to buy on Steam. Do you actually believe EA lost 80% of their digital sales when they started Origin ?
They've got free games, timed exclusives retail releases of which will come with Epic keys. Overwhelming majority of core gamers will get Epic launcher installed, it's guaranteed at this point. This mean people will be buying exclusives there, just like they are buying EA games on Origin.
Valve could drop their cut to 15% and Epic exclusives would become a thing of the past overnight. Want to complain about exclusives, complain to Valve. I'd prefer to keep my digital library on Steam too.

 

[aeroaeko]

Easy decision to wait for the complete edition with all the DLC and bugs patched out a year later for a sale on steam