News Epic Games Store

[Ge0force]

Maybe the prices for securing exclusives went way up. We're almost two years after launch, many devs will know how well EGS exclusives have sold so far.

Good point. Most of the publishers signing additional exclusive deals with Epic had very succesful games on EGS in the past: Deep Silver had Satisfactory and Metro Exodus, Gearbox had BL3 and Saber had WWZ and Snowrunner. All of these publishers were very vocal about these games doing better than expected on EGS.

But what about other devs and publishers? Annapurna's recent games are all multistore. The Solitaire Conspiracy from the John Wick developer is on Steam as well, despite looking very promising. Most other recent EGS exclusives are first deals for the devs.

It is possible that Epic wants to become cozy with as many popular devs as possible. Or... most games didn't do very well on EGS. The coupons may indicate the latter, but we honestly don't know. Lot's of people seem to be using Epic's coupons, but based on what I read on forums they seem to be using them for AAA-games most of the time (Ubisofts games, RDR2 etc)

 

[MJunioR]

Do you have a source for this? Giving away Total War Troy for free on release day must have been pretty expensive for Epic, as well as getting exclusivity for Tony Hawk from greedy Activision.

Sorry, won't be able to quote anything to back that. Still, you're right, Troy wasn't cheap, but that one is also an outlier since Epic wanted it. To better exemplify what I meant by my post, I doubt that they would work with Annapurna now on the same terms they did for Outer Wilds. Unless, of course, Epic sees potential on their games enough that they will proactively try to get it like they did with almost every big release last year.

Dunno about Tony Hawk, but I wouldn't be surprised if Activision hadn't even tried to negotiate enough to allow it to be released on battle.net along with Epic.

 

[Ge0force]

Here are Playtrackers estimated numbers for a few former EGS exclusives on Steam:

Metro Exodus: 1100k
RDR2: 1600k
BL3: 1700k
Outer Wilds: 476k
Detroit: 301k
Hades: 1000k
Satisfactory: 858k
Control: 288k
Griftlands: 211k
Ashen: 58k
Ancestors: 75k

These are pretty good numbers considering the exclusivity (3-12 months) and the deep discounts + coupons on EGS.
Devs and publishers would take a huge risk by going EGS exclusive permanently.

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

Should I pre-order Bugsnax on EGS as my ironic participation in the next-gen release hype?

 

[Alexandros]

I wonder how buyers of Watch Dogs Legion feel about Tim Sweeney's claims that moneyhats will lead to better games.

 

[NarohDethan]

I wonder how buyers of Watch Dogs Legion feel about Tim Sweeney's claims that moneyhats will lead to better games.

I mean it lead me to buy No More Heroes on Switch which is a better game.

 

[Ge0force]

Should I pre-order Bugsnax on EGS as my ironic participation in the next-gen release hype?

Nah...

 

[Phoenix RISING]

I think if they were selling really well Tim would be tweeting about it all the time.

The developers would too.

If Hades had performed well on EGS, Supergiant would have posted about a milestone of sales.

 

[Alexandros]

The developers would too.

If Hades had performed well on EGS, Supergiant would have posted about a milestone of sales.

Absolutely. It is in both Epic and the moneyhatted developer's best interests to show that the deal was a success. The fact that none of them do so speaks volumes.

 

[fantomena]

The only devs/pubs I know who have talked about great sales on EGS is Saber (WWZ, Snowrunner) and Coffee Stain (Satisfactory) from what I can recall and they did have great sales and WWZ and Satisfactory is "known" as to be some of the success stories there.

Blands 3 might have sold around 2 million which sounds great, but considering there haven't been a word from Gearbox or 2K about it and that they inital plan to release it on Steam in may was cancelled as they moved it forward to april may show some signs.

 

[Ge0force]

The lack of user reviews on EGS must be a blessing for Ubisoft

 

[Swenhir]

The lack of user reviews on EGS must be a blessing for Ubisoft

For the gaming industry you mean .

 

[ISee]

I wonder how buyers of Watch Dogs Legion feel about Tim Sweeney's claims that moneyhats will lead to better games.

WD_Legion should have been a true, full EGSclusive. Would have saved me twelve bucks.
I could have endured the troublesome performance on PC, but the gameplay is so boring. I quiet after five hours.
I tried, I really did.

 

[madjoki]

Next freebies according to korealeaks

엘리트 데인저러스(Elite Dangerous, PC)
더 월드 넥스트 도어(The World Next Door, PC)

 

[C-Dub]

Elite Dangerous is interesting. Wouldn't mind trying that out in VR.

 

[Wok]

더 월드 넥스트 도어(The World Next Door, PC)

Tim has discovered the existence of anime.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Elite Dangerous is interesting. Wouldn't mind trying that out in VR.

Its great in VR.

 

[fspm]

The lack of user reviews on EGS must be a blessing for Ubisoft

Those scores have more variety than ubi 'games'

 

[gabbo]

The lack of user reviews on EGS must be a blessing for Ubisoft

I dunno, people have known Ubisoft make Bland™ long before EGS decided to make them a cornerstone of their store.

 

[Copons]

YO! Shenmue 3 confirmed!

Steam Release Announcement


Ys NetCreator
November 6, 2020

日本語はこちら

Hello Everyone,

Yes, it is official, Shenmue III will be released on Steam this November 19th.

Game and in-game rewards codes will be available for PC version backers who manually selected the Steam opt-in through the survey during the September/October 2019 survey resend period. Applicable backers will be able to claim their codes through the “Downloads and Download Codes” section of your survey. Fangamer will send out email notices when the codes are ready a few days prior to release.

As a reminder, you can go to the Survey Resender if you need your survey resent:

Survey Support and Survey Resender

With the Steam release, we hope even more people will journey to Guilin and the world of Shenmue III again or for the first time.

I think there's a typo though:

• With the Steam release, we hope even more people will journey to Guilin and the world of Shenmue III again or for the first time.
• With the Steam release, we hope someone, anyone, will play the game.

 

[Arc]

I was glancing over Sega's financial statements, and A Total War Saga: Troy generated the company 3.2 billion yen the quarter it was released. That would be around $30 million USD. While I'm sure there were some copies sold outside of the free promotion, that kind of gives you a guesstimate as to how much Epic paid for that specific game.

 

[ISee]

Only $30 million for TW:Troy? The game was given away 7.5 million times on the first day.

A Total War Saga: Troy - An Epic Success on the Epic Games Store

A Total War Saga: Troy has proven to be an epic success on the Epic Game Store, hitting mammoth-like figures on the day-one giveaway.

wccftech.com

Hard to imagine that a significant number of people bought the game later. 7.5 million isn't something even TW:Warhammer 2 or Three Kingdoms sold till now andboth games are huge successes.

Epic must have paid $3-$4 per copy.

 

[Arc]

Troy is a Saga game which are the lower budget spinoffs compared to Warhammer and the historical games. The other Saga game, Britannia, sold poorly relative to other games in the series. As much as I dislike Epic's exclusivity contracts, Sega and CA made the right call with Troy from a purely financial perspective because there's no way that game would have made $30 million from customer sales.

 

[ISee]

Britannia was a special case that had a lot of negative coverage before launch on YT.
Now Troy wasn't received in silk and high praise either, but it was a lot less harsh and negative. People seem to like it a lot more than Britannia.
I'm actually confident it would have done okay, especially long term and considering how much money there is in long term DLC sales with this franchise.
The move also didn't bring the love for Saga games back and brought a lot of negativity towards Sega, towards the franchise and panic if TW:Warhammer 3 will become an exclusive.

They made a bit more money, but took a lot of PR damage and the trust is rather low. I don't think it was worth it.

 

[Ge0force]

They made a bit more money, but took a lot of PR damage and the trust is rather low. I don't think it was worth it.

I agree with Arc here: as much as I hate exclusivity deals, it made perfectly sense for Sega to take this deal. The huge amount of new players is worth much, much more for them than the PR damage on a number of existing fans, who will buy the game anyway when it arrives on Steam.

What I'm curious about: did Epic contact Sega with the giveaway in mind, or rather decided to do a giveaway because Sage initially refused their money hat?

 

[Arc]

From what I can tell, upcoming Sega PC games will have simultaneous launches on Steam and EGS. Football Manager '21 and Humankind are launching on both stores. I would guess future Total War titles would be the same. Also if Epic is paying $30 million for a B title like Troy, Warhammer 3 could easily cost them >$100 million and that is (probably) too expensive even for Epic.

 

[ISee]

We can argue back and forth, but I'd like to add two thoughts:

If we postulate that Troy had no chance on the open market, because Saga games are rather bad and unloved, and that $30 million (or $3-$4 per game) was a good deal. Than we have to ask if a lackluster, rather bad iteration of a franchise is even able to attract completely new players?
Good in attracting new players, but not worth selling in the first place doesn't rhyme. I think Sega wanted guaranteed money and that was the only reason.

The second thought I'd like to add is even more simple: We all have games that we bought for the combination of cheap + some interest.
In the end, I've not even installed all the games that I bought for that reason... How high is the number of untouched or barely played copies of Troy?

In my opinion: Sega threw out Troy to die and did more damage to the Saga side franchise than Britannia did. It's now confirmed that even the publisher doesn't believe in the game(s) they are making. Why should the fans?

We'll see how it goes.

 

[Ge0force]

It's now confirmed that even the publisher doesn't believe in the game(s) they are making. Why should the fans?

I don't think that's correct. If Sega didn't believe in Troy, they would have cancelled the game a long time ago. Most EGS deals are signed merely months before release.

Don't forget that Sega gets lots (if not most) of it's revenue from selling DLC. In this strategy, having as much people as possible playing the base game is extremely important.

I'm pretty sure that exposure to new players is the main reason why Sega took Epic's deal. FM proved that Epic's giveaways are more effective than doing free weekends on Steam. If the EGS crowd is willing to buy Sega's DLC and upcoming TW games remains to be seen of course.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

 

[madjoki]

Wasn't initial plan to open after 6 months?

 

[TioChuck]

Wasn't initial plan to open after 6 months?

Was supposed to open by the end of the year 2019... and 2020. lol

I have the feeling they are scaling down on the EGS development.

 

[Joe Spangle]

You've got to give them time. These things can't be done overnight.

 

[Swenhir]

Was supposed to open by the end of the year 2019... and 2020. lol

I have the feeling they are scaling down on the EGS development.

Will the shopping cart make the cut?

 

[Ge0force]

Wasn't initial plan to open after 6 months?

EGS has no discovery features. Making it open would make Epic's moneyhatted games almost invisible between the loads of other games.

 

[TheTrain]

Was supposed to open by the end of the year 2019... and 2020. lol

I have the feeling they are scaling down on the EGS development.

I hope so

 

[prudis]

I have the feeling they are scaling down on the EGS development.

so from 1 intern to noone?

 

[Shahem]

It's been a truly abysmal year for EGS.

 

[Mor]

It's been a truly abysmal year for EGS.

Just wait until I publish some numbers next month for the second anniversary

 

[madjoki]

TBH, the true competitor of Steam is WeGame. Probably is bigger than Steam already. EGS has nothing on either.

 

[Mor]

TBH, the true competitor of Steam is WeGame. Probably is bigger than Steam already. EGS has nothing on either.

This! WeGame is MASSIVE!

 

[Tizoc]

TBH, the true competitor of Steam is WeGame. Probably is bigger than Steam already. EGS has nothing on either.

Egs is a sad joke at this point

 

[ISee]

The only thing EGS is good at are Headlines. Now while that is important too, I doubt it is where they hoped it would be after two years.
Still, it is here to stay. The EGS success train is a bit of a Tell but don't Show story.

For WeGame: That's huge, no doubts. But I think a "surrogate" like EGS is needed for Tenscent to establish an impact PC shop presence on the western market.

 

[Mor]

Just wait until I publish some numbers next month for the second anniversary

LOL, no eyes, it's basically my spreadsheet data like launches, deals and so comparing 2019 to 2020

 

[prudis]

it's basically my spreadsheet data

 

[Ge0force]

I'm curious if Epic will continue the giveaways and/or coupons in 2021. My guess is they'll keep giving 1 or 2 games a week and at least 2 coupons each year. Their MAU's would probably drop dramatically without the coupons and free games...

 

[lashman]

I'm curious if Epic will continue the giveaways and/or coupons in 2021.

100%

 

[Virtual Ruminant]

I'm curious if Epic will continue the giveaways and/or coupons in 2021.

I sure hope so! I like Tim's sweet little presents.

 

[Mor]

I'm curious if Epic will continue the giveaways and/or coupons in 2021. My guess is they'll keep giving 1 or 2 games a week and at least 2 coupons each year. Their MAU's would probably drop dramatically without the coupons and free games...

They will keep doing all that stuff because it's the only real reason to weekly updates for EGS in terms of news and engagement on social media, aside of that, what else would happen each week until they completely open the store? there's you answer.

No free promo, no weekly movement, no weekly movement, well, it goes down in popularity.

 

[Ge0force]

It seems Epic is focusing on their online services at the moment. They are working on cross-platform voice chat + parties according to their trello, and they are also planning some kind of "social" overlay across all platforms. I wonder if Epic will lock this service to EGS sooner or later. They must have a plan to monetize this in the long run.

 

[prudis]

didnt Timmy said no anime on the store?