News Epic Games Store
- Thread starter Blizniak
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Oh no, that wasn't my intention at all!
I'm just saying that Fortnite and the free games may result in EGS being the most used launcher for younger gamers. At this moment, these gamers aren't big spenders. But when they get a job and have the money to buy lots of games, they may prefer EGS because they are used to it.
That does not mean that Steam is doomed of course, since Steam is constantly evolving as well.
I only have a few tweens in the family. But they are mostly playing Fortnite and GTA online on their dads (old) computer.
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The way I see it is this: If you are the Fortnite type of player (free to play, GaaS) then it's highly unlikely that you are buying many regular (or core) games. If you are the regular (core) type of gamer then the overwhelming majority of your library will still end up being on Steam. Both groups may belong in the general category of "PC gamers" but their playing and buying habits are vastly different. So I can't see the path that turns any meaningful percentage of these young Fortnite players into core gamers that buy lots of games on EGS instead of Steam.
depends i guess , i remember discussion with my american friend about the acces to games in our youth (90s/00s) and with similar reasons (aka being poor and parents not really into computing) .... we had complete opposite ways to get into games .... in the america it was mostly consoles and borrowing games at the school and PC was deemed work machine ,here (CZ) it was complete opposite where console (other than some famiclones from vietnamese flea markets) was rare device for the wealthy (and parentally seen as useless as it was games only) and everyone pretty much had knowledge how to build PC and games were mostly through magazines or pirated as there wasnt really a legit market for them
I guess there will totally be similar not just "geographical" differenes even these days
I'm not sure about this. It seems to me that F2P games are the entry point into gaming for the absolute majority of children nowadays, including my own daughter. Everywhere I go, I see children playing F2P games on their parents phone, their own tablet or on dad's computer.
I agree that the majority of these people won't buy or play any other games than the most popular F2P stuff. But it's very likely that the people who DO become a "core" gamer, have an extensive history with popular F2P games like Fortnite.
When we were young, our gaming experience was limited by the high prices of gaming hardware and games. This is no longer the case nowadays.
Agreed, but anecdotally I see almost zero overlap between that kind of gaming and core gaming. I think that they are two separate worlds within the same platform, kinda like the people who buy a console only to play FIFA.
Agreed. But I believe that most of the "new" core gamers are former F2P gamers nowadays, for the reasons I mentioned in my previous posts. People don't get into gaming by getting a console or pc for their birthday anymore; this already happens when they learn how to use a tablet or smartphone at a very young age.
It's likely that Epic is aiming to target these "new" core gamers with their free games. They must be well aware that they won't be able to persuade existing core gamers to drop Steam for EGS with anything but exclusives.
Another win for Timmy.
opencritic.com
Twin Mirror Reviews
Twin Mirror is rated 'Weak' after being reviewed by 74 critics, with an overall average score of 61. It's ranked in the bottom 19% of games and recommended by 31% of critics.
opencritic.com
I was curious how this one would turn out. One of the original financiers of Shenmue III jumped on board with this around the time Namco were dropping the PC version and physical console releases, which is also to no one's surprise the same time they announced they were going EGS exclusive.Another win for Timmy.
Twin Mirror Reviews
Twin Mirror is rated 'Weak' after being reviewed by 74 critics, with an overall average score of 61. It's ranked in the bottom 19% of games and recommended by 31% of critics.
The game looked poor a year or so ago, but I was hopeful the delay and Epic's cash injection would get it into a decent state. I guess all they wanted to do was get the shambling corpse over the finish line and pocket the exclusivity bucks.
Epic seems to be attracting a new sort of grift.
This is once more proof that Epic's moneyhats don't lead to better games.
I really wish they'd spent their money making games instead. I reckon the end result would've been better and we'd have some quality games to play. I reckon if they'd held back a year or two, funded some new exclusives that were published by Epic (thus, they shouldered all the risk rather than cherry-picking third party exclusives to grab headlines), and launched their store with a bunch of first party games they'd be in a much stronger position now.
Instead they just moneyhatted a few good games and, increasingly as of late, a whole bunch of bad or mediocre ones, and generated a ton of ill will in the process. Meanwhile, Valve doesn't have to pay for exclusives and gets runaway hits like Phasmophobia and Among Us, to name just two.
The only two upcoming EGS exclusives that look interesting right now are Hitman 3 and Kena. I'm curious how both of those review.
That's always been PR nonsense by Tim, along with the claim that a lower cut would lead to cheaper games.
Eurgh, gutted about Twin Mirror, was looking forward to that.
If only Epic made games that weren't just Fortnite content. They've got ip and the Rocket League dev, and they're just sitting on them. Hell, use some of that moneyhat to get third party devs (maybe some of those same indie devs they claim to be trying to save) and have them create a new Pinball, or Jazz Jackrabbit, or finish the Unreal Tournament that was like 45% finished two years ago.. I would buy any one of those, on EGS even, without hesitation.
Hell a relaunch of the store with 2021-expectant features would be a nice touch too, but that's getting ahead of myself.
2019/2020 EGS Wrap-up, analysis and personal opinion with own data
Well, I was planning to do this post in ten days given that it was when the first wave was announced and the spreadsheet was created, for those wondering this is a retrospective of how the EGS has been doing in both 2019 and 2020 and compare the performance between both years, why didn't I post this in 2019? because there was no A point to compare with, so this is the first analysis I will make.
Before we start I want to say a few things.
First of all, this is a completely not official piece of data, my spreadsheet is a manual process I have been doing week after week since December 2018, as so, it might lack some information or some numbers might not be entirely complete, for example, I know there are 2 free giveaway games that are not represented but I couldn't find which ones were those.
Second thing, at a personal level I don't like EGS, that's not news but data is above my own biases, this is a completely objective analysis of the situation with numbers, not opinions, I don't care if you use the EGS, Steam, GOG or Stadia, please, do enjoy whatever platform you use and let people enjoy gaming the way they want.
Third thing, this was something I said back in November and I want to see if I was more or less correct, you will be the one who decides how correct or mistaken I was.
Fourth and last thing, this was announced just right now so I won't be able to modify the numbers but still, my bet is that they will announce around 8 games, 6 news and 2 already known (Hitman 3 most likely one of them) same as point 3, you will be the one who decides if I was wrong or right, ok?
following the same pattern that followed at the E3, gamescom and spring reel.
Now that being said, LET'S GET THIS ANALYSIS STARTED!!!!
Galyokin shared this tweet about the status of the store this year and in addition to the past year's data.
He says that they started with only 2 games, while technically true (Fortnite and another 1P games I can't remember) until December 18th, 2018, when the first wave was announced, the store itself started running in late December with 6 games released and 12 announced but still not available as you can see here (this is the first version of the spreadsheet dated as January 12, 2019; 24 games, not even a freebie yet)
And he also says that right now the store has about 400 games, which is not entirely false but the number is around 350 games (344 games in my document but some are not listed) so I'm not going to say it's a lie, just a potential missed data point from my part as I might have missed some things.
The actual state of the games are this:
This way things might not be that cool, right? well, let's get some numbers.
2019:
32,6% of all exclusives (including without dates and unknown) already released on Steam and/or GOG
55,7% of timed exclusives with dates already released on Steam and/or GOG
not bad, right?
As you can see the numbers would indicate that in 2019, 109 exclusivity deals were signed/announced, while in 2020 only 36 exclusivity deals were signed/announced up to this day.
However, the biggest change has been the more open approach of the store as the number that changes the most is the Non-exclusive entries, from 87 up to 208, which is really great to see, however, why did this number get such an increase? well, let's remember that freebies are still a thing, in 2019, until mid-year it was 1 freebie/2 weeks and then it switched to 2 freebies/2 weeks but a third change happened at the very end of the year (IIRC about October) that was 2 freebies/each week, this change has been stayed like that all the way until the end of 2020 (and there is no indication that this will change)
Why so? probably because the biggest number of users that interact with the store each week are the ones that redeem those games as we have seen in multiple occasions, also, it's the only way of engagement within the social media each week, as there isn't a constant flow of games entering nor a flow of news, the freebies are the only way to stay afloat in terms of relevance each week against other competitors.
Not only that but at the same time this strategy has been used in multiple occasions (the biggest one was GTA V and Total War Troy) as it's an easy number to sell to the media (remember the millions?) so yeah, this is one of the very few data points we have available to study the tendencies (and probably the main reason, alongside fortnite, of why they use users and not customers, as customers are only those who buy games on the store itself and probably the numbers are not the ones they expected, once again, MAYBE)
So, what's the balance here?
2020 has been a much slower year for the EGS compared to 2019, the number of deals announced has been highly reduced, their new strategy is to open the store more and, potentially, publish non-announced games (although this doesn't mean specifically EGS exclusive forever, this is something we must keep into consideration because there's still a lot to know about this)
The number of timed exclusives AAA has been much lower too and it has been linked to the free giveaways much more than expected, which could mean a potential way of engagement with the media, social media and PR announcements.
2021 might be different but I think the most likely approach here will be from the bigger teams a multi-store approach and from some known indies, maybe, accept the deal and then 12 months later release elsewhere.
now AS A PERSONAL OPINION I think during the last few months (pretty much 2020 as a whole) I think the EGS has been kind of the "not secured products" store, let me explain myself, most of the deals have been for two kind of products, the first one targeted AAA/AA games that pretty much had a known name or already had certain expectations from the players (The Outer World, Borderlands, Control, etc...) and the second group is about those games that doesn't have any kind of potential expectations/more experimental and have behind them not so wealthy teams/known publishers like Devolver or Nacon.
The first team was kind of a big deal in 2019 but decreased in 2020, however the second one was the predominant group in 2020 making this store an option for those teams who are not entirely sure about the reception of the products to get a day 1 pay-check for a timed exclusivity (like a safe-guard) to get revenue from day 1 and then having time to check if the game works or not for when it releases in a different store.
And I think that's about it, sorry for all this text-wall, but I wanted to make this analysis, your interaction will be more than welcome and if you want to say something, ask something or just correct me somewhere, I will be more than glad answering you all, if anything I really hope you liked this analysis and probably will happen again in 2021, we will see if we are still alive haha.
Before we start I want to say a few things.
First of all, this is a completely not official piece of data, my spreadsheet is a manual process I have been doing week after week since December 2018, as so, it might lack some information or some numbers might not be entirely complete, for example, I know there are 2 free giveaway games that are not represented but I couldn't find which ones were those.
Second thing, at a personal level I don't like EGS, that's not news but data is above my own biases, this is a completely objective analysis of the situation with numbers, not opinions, I don't care if you use the EGS, Steam, GOG or Stadia, please, do enjoy whatever platform you use and let people enjoy gaming the way they want.
Third thing, this was something I said back in November and I want to see if I was more or less correct, you will be the one who decides how correct or mistaken I was.
Fourth and last thing, this was announced just right now so I won't be able to modify the numbers but still, my bet is that they will announce around 8 games, 6 news and 2 already known (Hitman 3 most likely one of them) same as point 3, you will be the one who decides if I was wrong or right, ok?
following the same pattern that followed at the E3, gamescom and spring reel.
Now that being said, LET'S GET THIS ANALYSIS STARTED!!!!
Galyokin shared this tweet about the status of the store this year and in addition to the past year's data.
He says that they started with only 2 games, while technically true (Fortnite and another 1P games I can't remember) until December 18th, 2018, when the first wave was announced, the store itself started running in late December with 6 games released and 12 announced but still not available as you can see here (this is the first version of the spreadsheet dated as January 12, 2019; 24 games, not even a freebie yet)
And he also says that right now the store has about 400 games, which is not entirely false but the number is around 350 games (344 games in my document but some are not listed) so I'm not going to say it's a lie, just a potential missed data point from my part as I might have missed some things.
The actual state of the games are this:
This way things might not be that cool, right? well, let's get some numbers.
2019:
2020:
135 (all kinds of) exclusive games up to this day, 45 already released on Steam or...
32,6% of all exclusives (including without dates and unknown) already released on Steam and/or GOG
55,7% of timed exclusives with dates already released on Steam and/or GOG
not bad, right?
As you can see the numbers would indicate that in 2019, 109 exclusivity deals were signed/announced, while in 2020 only 36 exclusivity deals were signed/announced up to this day.
However, the biggest change has been the more open approach of the store as the number that changes the most is the Non-exclusive entries, from 87 up to 208, which is really great to see, however, why did this number get such an increase? well, let's remember that freebies are still a thing, in 2019, until mid-year it was 1 freebie/2 weeks and then it switched to 2 freebies/2 weeks but a third change happened at the very end of the year (IIRC about October) that was 2 freebies/each week, this change has been stayed like that all the way until the end of 2020 (and there is no indication that this will change)
Why so? probably because the biggest number of users that interact with the store each week are the ones that redeem those games as we have seen in multiple occasions, also, it's the only way of engagement within the social media each week, as there isn't a constant flow of games entering nor a flow of news, the freebies are the only way to stay afloat in terms of relevance each week against other competitors.
Not only that but at the same time this strategy has been used in multiple occasions (the biggest one was GTA V and Total War Troy) as it's an easy number to sell to the media (remember the millions?) so yeah, this is one of the very few data points we have available to study the tendencies (and probably the main reason, alongside fortnite, of why they use users and not customers, as customers are only those who buy games on the store itself and probably the numbers are not the ones they expected, once again, MAYBE)
So, what's the balance here?
2020 has been a much slower year for the EGS compared to 2019, the number of deals announced has been highly reduced, their new strategy is to open the store more and, potentially, publish non-announced games (although this doesn't mean specifically EGS exclusive forever, this is something we must keep into consideration because there's still a lot to know about this)
The number of timed exclusives AAA has been much lower too and it has been linked to the free giveaways much more than expected, which could mean a potential way of engagement with the media, social media and PR announcements.
2021 might be different but I think the most likely approach here will be from the bigger teams a multi-store approach and from some known indies, maybe, accept the deal and then 12 months later release elsewhere.
now AS A PERSONAL OPINION I think during the last few months (pretty much 2020 as a whole) I think the EGS has been kind of the "not secured products" store, let me explain myself, most of the deals have been for two kind of products, the first one targeted AAA/AA games that pretty much had a known name or already had certain expectations from the players (The Outer World, Borderlands, Control, etc...) and the second group is about those games that doesn't have any kind of potential expectations/more experimental and have behind them not so wealthy teams/known publishers like Devolver or Nacon.
The first team was kind of a big deal in 2019 but decreased in 2020, however the second one was the predominant group in 2020 making this store an option for those teams who are not entirely sure about the reception of the products to get a day 1 pay-check for a timed exclusivity (like a safe-guard) to get revenue from day 1 and then having time to check if the game works or not for when it releases in a different store.
And I think that's about it, sorry for all this text-wall, but I wanted to make this analysis, your interaction will be more than welcome and if you want to say something, ask something or just correct me somewhere, I will be more than glad answering you all, if anything I really hope you liked this analysis and probably will happen again in 2021, we will see if we are still alive haha.
Wonderful post, work and analysis. Thank you for such diligence for over two years now.
Users become the product.
What is deeply worrying about it is that tendency the gaming industry has been having this past decade, increasing this year in my perception, of really going hard on telemetry and spying on the user. Tencent being involved isn't really assuaging concerns either. I dread what may be coming in that respect, and I hope the store will just remain a smaller-sized alternative, working hard to regain trust and actually offer something to its users.
Emphasis mine. What worries me about it is that we all know what happens when users get something for free and the company has to do what companies do.
Users become the product.
What is deeply worrying about it is that tendency the gaming industry has been having this past decade, increasing this year in my perception, of really going hard on telemetry and spying on the user. Tencent being involved isn't really assuaging concerns either. I dread what may be coming in that respect, and I hope the store will just remain a smaller-sized alternative, working hard to regain trust and actually offer something to its users.
"Exciting news announcements" for EGS ? New deals I suppose.
Yeah probably a montage with some new indie gets and previously announced titles. I know there was a rumor of The Wolf Among Us 2 being shown, and that was confirmed exclusive last year so that would also count as 1
Yeah hopefully nothing too big in scope. I can deal with a few indies exclusive to that store.
The 2019 Game Awards sizzle reel included the following games:
-Predator Hunting Grounds
-Bloodroots
-Surgeon Simulator 2
-Rogue Company
-The Red Lantern
-Before We Leave
-Totally Reliable Delivery Service
-Foregone
-Godfall
Mostly low key games, except for Godfall which had a decent amount of buzz at the time since it was the first ever PS5 game announced. (Funny how things turned out with that). The 2020 sizzle reel will probably be similar, but knowing my luck there will be one big game that I'll be kinda salty about.
-Predator Hunting Grounds
-Bloodroots
-Surgeon Simulator 2
-Rogue Company
-The Red Lantern
-Before We Leave
-Totally Reliable Delivery Service
-Foregone
-Godfall
Mostly low key games, except for Godfall which had a decent amount of buzz at the time since it was the first ever PS5 game announced. (Funny how things turned out with that). The 2020 sizzle reel will probably be similar, but knowing my luck there will be one big game that I'll be kinda salty about.
It is a video reel with a few announcements, as Arc said, don't expect big announcements, it's something that has been happening a lot this year, probably Kena, Hitman 3 and the superbrothers game (can't remember the name right now) and some new indies announced. this is what I said.
Don't think there will be something out of the pattern, a few indies, perhaps an AAA and most likely some of the already announced stuff.
First of all, thanks
Secondly, when it comes to the "user becomes the product" theory, it is true because when it comes to any digital platform, the number of users is the main weapon you use to make your position matter and while some use it less than others, I think its's something that happens with every service, IMHO I don't think Tencent is the concern here because I can't see it being worse than some other corps that are also Epic investors, so in general I think it's right now the best way they have to make their place, using the users numbers (without giving them) to show the strong points of the store, but as I said, wording is key, when using certain metrics you are trying to highlight something and hide something else, but that's just my opinion.
You deserved it!First of all, thanks
Secondly, when it comes to the "user becomes the product" theory, it is true because when it comes to any digital platform, the number of users is the main weapon you use to make your position matter and while some use it less than others, I think its's something that happens with every service, IMHO I don't think Tencent is the concern here because I can't see it being worse than some other corps that are also Epic investors, so in general I think it's right now the best way they have to make their place, using the users numbers (without giving them) to show the strong points of the store, but as I said, wording is key, when using certain metrics you are trying to highlight something and hide something else, but that's just my opinion.
Regarding users becoming the product, I know and it's why I try to tell people who want to make a difference not to create accounts at all. But beyond that, I fear monetizing of data pertaining to the user, and the establishment of a telemetry-based market for profiling and advertisement. With that fear in mind, Tencent wasn't a very reassuring factor, but not an outright threat either.
Just a "oh this would sucks, especially with this." I just hope none of this comes to pass.
Great post Mor! 
Whatever Epic is about to announce, I'm pretty sure most of us won't like it. I expect more money hats, probably another giveaway of a brand new game like they did with Troy in exchange for exclusivity and there's a rumor that Epic will start a cross-platform store for VR games. I also expect them to continue the coupons and free games for at least another year to inflate the number of MAU's.
In my opinion, the state of EGS after two more years of development is beyond embarrassing. I don't see how EGS is competition for Steam, GoG or even Microsofts Xbox app in any way. But clearly I'm not seeing what the majority of games journalists can see.
Whatever Epic is about to announce, I'm pretty sure most of us won't like it. I expect more money hats, probably another giveaway of a brand new game like they did with Troy in exchange for exclusivity and there's a rumor that Epic will start a cross-platform store for VR games. I also expect them to continue the coupons and free games for at least another year to inflate the number of MAU's.
In my opinion, the state of EGS after two more years of development is beyond embarrassing. I don't see how EGS is competition for Steam, GoG or even Microsofts Xbox app in any way. But clearly I'm not seeing what the majority of games journalists can see.
One of the games I expect to see in the reel is Eitr, while the game came back to Steam shortly after the page went down by the publisher (and this is important) the game is still hidden from steam search bar and won't pop-up anymore.
My theory? Development has been long, really long and perhaps Devolver thinks it won't have any chance of success costing the company money that might want to get back ASAP so a moneyhat for 12 months is the easiest way to do so, and checks most of the conditions for EGS deal. take this as a personal guess.
Don't think most of this will come to realization at the pace they are doing things, of course they will keep fighting but I think we have just passed the moment in which the store will be an option and that's it, again, based on the data and trends, it's kind of difficult to see any other scenario just right now, but I will keep making numbers and projections and see what happens in the near future.
My theory? Development has been long, really long and perhaps Devolver thinks it won't have any chance of success costing the company money that might want to get back ASAP so a moneyhat for 12 months is the easiest way to do so, and checks most of the conditions for EGS deal. take this as a personal guess.
Thanks Geoforce.Great post Mor!
Whatever Epic is about to announce, I'm pretty sure most of us won't like it. I expect more money hats, probably another giveaway of a brand new game like they did with Troy in exchange for exclusivity and there's a rumor that Epic will start a cross-platform store for VR games. I also expect them to continue the coupons and free games for at least another year to inflate the number of MAU's.
In my opinion, the state of EGS after two more years of development is beyond embarrassing. I don't see how EGS is competition for Steam, GoG or even Microsofts Xbox app in any way. But clearly I'm not seeing what the majority of games journalists can see.
Don't think most of this will come to realization at the pace they are doing things, of course they will keep fighting but I think we have just passed the moment in which the store will be an option and that's it, again, based on the data and trends, it's kind of difficult to see any other scenario just right now, but I will keep making numbers and projections and see what happens in the near future.
Great work Mor , thank you for taking the time to collect this information.
Thanks a lot, Alexandros
I'm quite curious to see what kind of games this EGS reel will include. It should give us an idea on the kind of investment that Epic is willing to make.
If the list of exclusives disappoints, I think it'll become clear to everyone that Epic is focusing on their first party stuff.
I mean, check the lists of all the 2020 reels, it's a clear pattern. I don't see a reason why you should be sweating and even if something you want gets announced, check out the list, 12 months, that's it.
In my own opinion the things are more or less clear.
1 or 2 AAA (probably 1 and use Hitman 3 again as another AAA)
0 or 1 of their published games (probably the Limbo devs one)
and a bunch of indies from different places, self-published or with known publisher (Eitr in most likely)
I wish Epic would just fucking sell games instead of stir drama. This whole thread would have like 4 pages instead of 247.
I would not dislike Epic nearly as much if Tim Sweeney would tone down the rhetoric. He's got a major case of a messiah complex by thinking only he can change PC and mobile gaming, yet conveniently has a blind spot for consoles even though they charge similar rates.
It's not even about Sweeney for me. EGS' whole concept of the customer is a relic, like the old 1950s hollywood studio system, or record companies and their radio stations in the late 1990s, or how game consoles are increasingly looking in 2020. Choice and service always win. Epic doesn't disrupt the market, it tries to bring it back to the old world of gaming and that's why nobody wants it. I'd love to shop there if they can not be dicks.
I think Sweeney has a kind of weird envy for what Valve has been able to accomplish and he thinks he shoulda done the same thing, but better, though he is about a decade too late. I don't believe what he says is what he necessarily thinks, he just says what he thinks better furthers his goals. It's just PR. I always thought Gabe Newell largely keeping his mouth shut and not getting into little spats here and there was a good plan. Except that New Zealand thing, I mean wtf. But that's just weird billionaire stuff. Anyway Valve's actions speak louder than their (non-existent) tweets in terms of how they feel about the PC platform. Case in point: they made gaming on linux a for real viable option, and there's no way that's profitable.
Like I don't think that Sweeney actually wants to change PC gaming or cares in any way whatsoever. He just cares about his little pissing contest. That's why he has those inconsistencies. He finds himself at the head of a game company, but he could just as easily be making kitchen appliances, trying to be the king of sporks or whatever. That's how some people are.
So there's my rant. I'm basically annoyed with TGS because I dislike EGS swallowing indie devs under their publishing label, maybe? to restrict access to them somehow, regardless of how that turns out for the dev. Which is kinda dumb on my part, since there's always the great defeater of PC gaming shenanegans: piracy.
Also, when I tally the actual damage of EGS's foolishness, it's that I had to wait a year for Goose Game, which was fun but short. So that's where a couple hundred million dollars has got them from my perspective. I mean the stupidity there is mind boggling.
Absolutely spot on.
And little by little, breaking Windows's foothold on gaming the PC space will, in my opinion, have pretty powerful consequences far down the line.
Oh I'm not sweating at all, I've been very vocal in my belief that Epic will be scaling down its moneyhatting sooner rather than later so your data didn't surprise me. I want to see what Epic does next about EGS purely for curiosity's sake, to get a handle on what their plan is going forward. Is it publishing, like the deal with Remedy? Is it giving away new games like Troy? Will they go for the Game Pass model?
I think that EGS' second year in the market has shown us two things. One, the store can't cut it as a Steam competitor even with all of the monetary incentives. Two, Epic has a specific budget for its EGS project, not the unlimited Fortnite money that some were imagining. So we'll see where they'll go from here. My hope is that Epic will stop the moneyhatting shenanigans and try to gain customers in a more consumer-friendly way.
Thank Phoenix
That's the thing, after year two I expect a kind of switching path in some aspects scaling down the number of moneyhatted games (until it reaches 0, actually) and focus on a different direction.
this is already a thing but we don't have results nor enough data to analyze what can we expect from this, more games will be published but if you ask me, those will only be timed exclusives (I have already explained why I think so, but if necessary I will explain it again)
You can absolutely bet on this too, as I explained in my post, the main way of keeping the store relevant right now at a weekly basis is via the giveaways and the freebies, not only that but when they give away a timed exclusive at release date, the media usually puts the focus on EGS because it's a bigger thing that the usual weekly giveways, so yeah, expect this to keep happening just because it makes sense.
Aren't they testing a subscription model for Fortnite already?
This is largely my view too. I wasn't sweating at all.
They had a theory that publishers and developers could dictate where players went, and players would follow. Considering Steam versions outsell Epic versions released 3-12 months earlier in a fraction of the time, that theory has been categorically demolished. Time was always going to be this project's undoing.
I think next they will focus on their publishing arm and make them exclusive to EGS. I actually don't have a problem with that because Epic has to shoulder a lot of risk to get those games made, which is a respectable position inasmuch as they are funding new games rather than cherry picking nearly-finished titles for their store, and developers are getting an excellent deal.
Agreed. While I still prefer a multistore release, I don't mind exclusivity for 1st party games.
This said, Epic's shitty behavior during the past two years made sure that I will ignore or pirate any of their published games if they are EGS exclusive. I'm done with giving my money to shitty companies.
Eggs decided that the customer isn't the priority and that's fine for them to do so, but personally, as a customer its the reason i wont deal with them. Games aren't some special product deserving of special treatment. Its my money and ill spend it where i feel i get the best return. Eggs ain't it.
Also Tim was a complete arse at the start.
Also its funny that they made a big point about how they would prioritise devs but actually made deals with publishers instead.
Also I didn't like how the message at the start was basically this is good for you just shut up and consume.
I will say that eggs has helped me not buy as many games these last two years as there were some day one purchases i would've picked up that went eggs and so now sit on my 'wait till on Steam and cheap' list. So thanks Epic.
Also Tim was a complete arse at the start.
Also its funny that they made a big point about how they would prioritise devs but actually made deals with publishers instead.
Also I didn't like how the message at the start was basically this is good for you just shut up and consume.
I will say that eggs has helped me not buy as many games these last two years as there were some day one purchases i would've picked up that went eggs and so now sit on my 'wait till on Steam and cheap' list. So thanks Epic.
That was the best part about how the PC gaming community reacted to Epic. For a whole year customers were bombarded by practically everyone in the industry about how Epic's moneyhatting is the best thing ever and those who oppose it are irrelevant and/or toxic. Customers overwhelmingly showed them the middle finger and that was both satisfying and hilarious.
That's summer sale, yes, it was like 5$Control
Seems pretty barren outside sales promos. (Steam was 08/20, outside range as was November 2020 which is the best month so far)
Too bad we don't have numbers of Steam's performance.
Remedy is a great example of how to ruin your reputation with bad business decisions. Especially on pc, they always seem to find a way to piss off their fans with exclusivity deals and/or late/bad pc versions. No doubt they'll do this with their next game as well, since it's published by Epic and probably a permanent EGS exclusive.Control
Seems pretty barren outside sales promos. (Steam was 08/20, outside range as was November 2020 which is the best month so far)
I'm convinced that having a loyal customer base is more important than ever nowadays. I mean, I have 500 games in my backlog and hundreds more on my wishlist. Why on earth should I bother to spend money on devs or publisher that I don't like?
What is this from? A sales report of some kind?Control
Seems pretty barren outside sales promos. (Steam was 08/20, outside range as was November 2020 which is the best month so far)
But yeah that's bad. People only buying the game when Tim subsidies the sales. All Epic does is burn money by giving away free games and paying people to buy games. No matter how much they make off of Fortnight that can't go on forever.
To be fair to Epic, that is probably the same sales trajectory most single player games have. The more interesting thing is that PC sales were virtually nil during periods where it wasn't on sale whereas the console version had slightly higher overall sales during their off sales periods.