News Epic Games Store

[ISee]

Epic has not changed one single thing about Valve and that's actually great. Valve is not even responding or acknowledging any of the Tim Twitter shenanigans. I wish I would be able to hold my cool that good, when constantly provoked.
Let's also be fair about business development at valve. It does not exist. They just do stuff and do what they think is healthy for PC gaming, because PC gaming prints money for them. They also understand that piracy was the biggest thread to PC gaming and that it was about to destroy it.
They established a healthy PC client, with fair prices, mod support, online family sharing, a voice chat options, cloud saves, achievements and a fair return policy that makes preorders not a really problem. They tried to establish a console like PC distribution with Steam Boxes, unified controller support in their eco system and tried to bring out a new one to improve keyboard less gaming. They are invested in Linux support (because let's be real about what company really holds the reigns in PC gaming: Microsoft) and are investing in new, exciting technologies like VR.

I sound like a total fanboy, and maybe I am (despite buying games on GOG, whenever possible) and I understand that they are a company and only invested in PC gaming because it is how they earn money. But it is really hard to not like Valve/Steam as a PC gamer, imagine EA would own Steam and how bad things would look like then. I am very happy Valve never changed, because for some time I was very worried that they might go and start to buy games themselves. They didn't.

I also leave this (well known) email from Gabe here. It is about Oculus exclusivity.

We are happy to offset that (risk) giving developers development funds. Essentially pre-paid Steam revenue [1:1 how Epic pays for exclusivity]. However there are no strings attached to those funds - they can develop for the Rift or PSVR or whatever the developer thinks are the right target VR systems. Our hope is tat by providing funding that developers will be less likely to take on deals that rquire them to be exclusive.

Make sense?

Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me!

 

[Ruvon]

The only people with influence who have reacted to EGS are the press. They have given them far more prominence than they deserve, and talk about them in the same breath as more established and feature-full services like GOG and Steam.

I see some press people I usually like speaking of market shares "taken" from Steam by Epic. But no surprise (or because of my lack of Google-Fu skills), I can't find any numbers.

I mean, they probably took a few parts of the PC gaming market ; Satisfactory, BL3, WWZ... Epic DID sell a few copies of a few games for sure. But how many ? How many players are only grabbing the free games and never bought anything on EGS ? How many "real" (paying) users on EGS ? How many people choosing EGS over Steam when games are available on both platforms ?

Do you know if these numbers exists, or if any discussion about this is doomed to be about feels and deductions instead of facts ?

I'm trying to write an article for the EGS "birthday", I would like to talk not only about my view on Epic's strategy, but about results too.

 

[lashman]

Do you know if these numbers exist

they do not, no

well, not officially, at least ... i'm sure epic know ... and probably the publishers as well

 

[C-Dub]

Let's also be fair about business development at valve. It does not exist.

I largely agree with you, but this bit is factually incorrect. Valve has people working specifically on business development (two of the more public individuals are Tom Giardino and Molly Carroll), and has done for a long time.

Valve works in its own ways, indeed, but they still need to do business with more traditional corps and indies - basically businesses of all shapes and sizes. That requires outreach and people with good skills in doing that.

 

[Ge0force]

I'm trying to write an article for the EGS "birthday", I would like to talk not only about my view on Epic's strategy, but about results too.

Here's some inspiration

News - Epic Games Store

Oh, he understands. He just doesn't give a shit. Same as Sweeney. yeah, they're not dumb ... just EXTREMELY disingenuous

metacouncil.com

 

[Ruvon]

Here's some inspiration

News - Epic Games Store

Oh, he understands. He just doesn't give a shit. Same as Sweeney. yeah, they're not dumb ... just EXTREMELY disingenuous

metacouncil.com

I was already planning to steal that from you and translate it in French so you'll never know

Now I'll have to mention you

Kidding, I will have to take a lot of info from here and there and I will mention everyone I can, because I'm not planning to steal any work from anyone

 

[Ge0force]

I was already planning to steal that from you and translate it in French so you'll never know

Now I'll have to mention you

Kidding, I will have to take a lot of info from here and there and I will mention everyone I can, because I'm not planning to steal any work from anyone

You now have my official permission to use this post in your article, without mentioning me at all. At least this makes it look like I'm not the only one with this opinion.

Here in Belgium, we get French lessons at school from the age of 10 by the way

 

[Ruvon]

You now have my official permission to use this post in your article, without mentioning me at all. At least this makes it look like I'm not the only one with this opinion.

Here in Belgium, we get French lessons at school from the age of 10 by the way

Thanks

Lucky you for learning French in school ! Here it's hard to find someone speaking another language than French, even though we're supposed to get lessons too... Had to leave the country for a while to truly learn other languages

 

[ISee]

Regarding Phoenix Point

Twitter is full of people asking about the Game Pass version.
Reddit is full of players disliking and criticizing the game.

• Line of Sight and bullet trajectory isn't working and often enough broken. Which is a tragedy for a Xcom like game where Line of Sight and realistic bullet trajectory is the big innovation.
• Lackluster customization options for soldiers.
• Identical maps, identical missions. It gets boring real quick.
• Bad performance paired with mediocre appearance. (Note: Battletech has the same problem and is also a Unity game. You really start wondering what's wrong with those unity games).
• Cover System doesn't work correctly.

So much for better game because of epics money.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Is it a full-on exclusive or out on Steam after a year in EEA (Epic Early Access)? I forgot all the details since they announced it, lol.

 

[RionaaM]

Of course. This is Epic's doing. They pushed Valve SO HARD to the edge with their competion, every hand at Valve is needed to compete with Epic.

They realized they can't beat Epic, so now they are downsizing. HL:A will probably be simply a card deck for Windows Solitaire.

 

[ISee]

Is it a full-on exclusive or out on Steam after a year in EEA (Epic Early Access)? I forgot all the details since they announced it, lol.

One year exclusive.

 

[Stone Ocean]

Regarding Phoenix Point

Twitter is full of people asking about the Game Pass version.
Reddit is full of players disliking and criticizing the game.

• Line of Sight and bullet trajectory isn't working and often enough broken. Which is a tragedy for a Xcom like game where Line of Sight and realistic bullet trajectory is the big innovation.
• Lackluster customization options for soldiers.
• Identical maps, identical missions. It gets boring real quick.
• Bad performance paired with mediocre appearance. (Note: Battletech has the same problem and is also a Unity game. You really start wondering what's wrong with those unity games).
• Cover System doesn't work correctly.

So much for better game because of epics money.

Sooo at this point we can assume any dev that says Epic money is meant to improve the game actually means "where is the the nearest pawn shop we can dump this piece of shit at"

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

One year exclusive.

Cool, it'll be patched by the time it hits Steam then? Thanks, Tim!

 

[Doctor Ironic]

I didn’t even know MCC came out on EGS, lmao. Do the versions on Gamepass, Steam, and EGS have crossplay with each other? Because if not, that’s gonna be one sad player base.

Don’t know how many people do the podcast dance, but today’s episode of Citations Needed is a real good one. It’s obviously about issues much more important than digital video game stores, but it is about how one of the tenets of capitalism is telling you that you have “choices“ when really only one of the options is realistic - or worse.

 

[Stone Ocean]

I didn’t even know MCC came out on EGS, lmao. Do the versions on Gamepass, Steam, and EGS have crossplay with each other? Because if not, that’s gonna be one sad player base.

Wait what? I'm pretty sure Halo isn't on the EGS.

 

[Arsene]

I didn’t even know MCC came out on EGS, lmao. Do the versions on Gamepass, Steam, and EGS have crossplay with each other? Because if not, that’s gonna be one sad player base.

Don’t know how many people do the podcast dance, but today’s episode of Citations Needed is a real good one. It’s obviously about issues much more important than digital video game stores, but it is about how one of the tenets of capitalism is telling you that you have “choices“ when really only one of the options is realistic - or worse.

It didnt release on EGS. People just send a fake link as a joke

 

[Ge0force]

Regarding Phoenix Point

Twitter is full of people asking about the Game Pass version.
Reddit is full of players disliking and criticizing the game.

• Line of Sight and bullet trajectory isn't working and often enough broken. Which is a tragedy for a Xcom like game where Line of Sight and realistic bullet trajectory is the big innovation.
• Lackluster customization options for soldiers.
• Identical maps, identical missions. It gets boring real quick.
• Bad performance paired with mediocre appearance. (Note: Battletech has the same problem and is also a Unity game. You really start wondering what's wrong with those unity games).
• Cover System doesn't work correctly.

So much for better game because of epics money.

And thanks to the lack of user reviews, the absolute majority of people won't know about these issues.

 

[CommodoreKong]

Let's also be fair about business development at valve. It does not exist. They just do stuff and do what they think is healthy for PC gaming, because PC gaming prints money for them. They also understand that piracy was the biggest thread to PC gaming and that it was about to destroy it.

Molly Carroll and Tom Giardino would probably disagree that there's no business development at Valve since that's what they list in their twitter bios.

 

[Rogue Agent]

And thanks to the lack of user reviews, the absolute majority of people won't know about these issues.

True. This is a strong argument against those who dismiss the importance of user reviews.

 

[Doctor Ironic]

It didnt release on EGS. People just send a fake link as a joke

Well, that’s embarrassing.

 

[ISee]

Apparently Rocket League Players aren't happy about the new increased prices.
Epic monetization scheme? One can only wonder.

couple of examples:

Well, that’s embarrassing.

lol, I also clicked on it before realizing that it could not be true.

 

[MJunioR]

Page not found - RUNE II

www.rune2.com

for people who can't see the linked post:

Hi everyone. We wanted to give you an update on RUNE II and our current status. This message is from the RUNE II Dev Team:

As we’ve said before, we love this game and we at Ragnarok Game LLC will continue to support RUNE II. We’ve poured in two-and-a-half years worth of passion and work into this project. And after a successful launch on the Epic Games Store a few weeks ago, we have received so much feedback from this great community. Our plan is to update and develop future RUNE II content for months to come.

As mentioned previously, we had no warning that our long term partner and friends in this project would abandon it during its most crucial moment, leaving our team at Ragnarok Game LLC to shoulder both the development and publishing burden of launch all on its own.

Since Human Head’s sudden closure, announcement, and discovering the active concealment of their acquisition, we have repeatedly requested access to the final launch build source code and RUNE II game assets. This is so we can continue to support, update, and execute future DLC for our community. As part of the publishing agreement on RUNE II, Ragnarok Game LLC has paid for the development of these assets and is the rightful owner of them. After repeated refusals by Human Head to produce these assets, we’ve had no choice but to file a legal complaint in order to obtain the RUNE II game assets. We have exhausted all possible options before getting to this point. This is not the step we wanted to take, but it is necessary in order to fulfill our promises to our community.

Again, our plan remains to continue working on RUNE II and launch onto other PC platforms in 2020. Through sharing feedback, many of you have correctly guessed at our future content plans. We eagerly look forward to refocusing the conversation about RUNE II’s bright future and more details of what’s to come.

Thanks,

 

[lashman]

couple of examples:

epic

for people who can't see the linked post:

things are getting spicy, i see

yeah, there's no way they didn't just take the money and ran

 

[TioChuck]

Page not found - RUNE II

www.rune2.com

for people who can't see the linked post:

When I asked people what was preventing pubs/devs to get the money and deliver a subpar product, I was told nobody would do that.

 

[Digoman]

I'm confused.... do we know if it was Ragnarok or Human Head that got the moneybag from Epic?

Doesn't really matter that much in the end though. This and Phoenix Point are just the latest two examples that the "we are going to take the money and make a better game" is the obvious bullshit we all knew it would be.

 

[eonden]

Epic has not changed one single thing about Valve and that's actually great. Valve is not even responding or acknowledging any of the Tim Twitter shenanigans. I wish I would be able to hold my cool that good, when constantly provoked.
Let's also be fair about business development at valve. It does not exist. They just do stuff and do what they think is healthy for PC gaming, because PC gaming prints money for them. They also understand that piracy was the biggest thread to PC gaming and that it was about to destroy it.
They established a healthy PC client, with fair prices, mod support, online family sharing, a voice chat options, cloud saves, achievements and a fair return policy that makes preorders not a really problem. They tried to establish a console like PC distribution with Steam Boxes, unified controller support in their eco system and tried to bring out a new one to improve keyboard less gaming. They are invested in Linux support (because let's be real about what company really holds the reigns in PC gaming: Microsoft) and are investing in new, exciting technologies like VR.

I sound like a total fanboy, and maybe I am (despite buying games on GOG, whenever possible) and I understand that they are a company and only invested in PC gaming because it is how they earn money. But it is really hard to not like Valve/Steam as a PC gamer, imagine EA would own Steam and how bad things would look like then. I am very happy Valve never changed, because for some time I was very worried that they might go and start to buy games themselves. They didn't.

I also leave this (well known) email from Gabe here. It is about Oculus exclusivity.



Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me!

Real talk here: I doubt Epic doing what Epic does has even changed how Valve communicates what they do, let alone change what they're actually working on.

The only guys I can even think that EGS may have even made take notice of them is anyone working on Business Development at Steam, but even then they probably have their plan and it seems to be working well - they just got EA back on board, and those conversations take a long time.

The only people with influence who have reacted to EGS are the press. They have given them far more prominence than they deserve, and talk about them in the same breath as more established and feature-full services like GOG and Steam.

I think it is quite clear that Epic (or well the rampant disinformation by the media that culminated with the overhype of Epic as a Steam killer during the first 4 months of 2019) made Steam more talkative about what they are working (and improve the self promotion of games with the "Best sellers of the month"). The level of communication from Valve on that side has been quite impressive to what we were accostumed to (and well, there is also the comments about culture change inside of Valve that stopped disincouraging Twitter profiles).
In terms of Steam upgrades, I believe none of them are direct answers to Epic, but rather linear upgrades to core issues that currently only Steam has (huge amounts of games and discoverability), as well as upgrade to the core service that were promised long ago and that are viable after depreciation of x32 launcher (Library, btw WHERE IS MY CALENDAR).

I would say that Steam Labs is more of an answer to indies crying of indieapocalypse and Valve ignoring the discoverability problems and the October bug from last year (and well, poaching on interesting ideas pitched by devs such as ichiro or Lars). They are temporary because they are unsure what the correct solution is and want to make sure that the indies know that they are working on them (although I guess most will become core part of the Store given time).

About big devs coming back to Steam, I dont believe they were given "special treatment". Bethesda had to come back for its sp games after unsucessfully trying to launch their own store (will probably try to leave in the future). MS is in an apology tour and offer a better value in Gamepass so the extra sales outside of it are free money. EA is probably trying to also grow their subscription service while recovering possible lost growth in PC and it has been confirmed they didnt get any extra benefit. The only thing is that there is a move to subscription services and direct sales are just extra gravy.

 

[MJunioR]

things are getting spicy, i see

yeah, there's no way they didn't just take the money and ran

Man, Epic couldn't have come at a better time for Human Head.

I'm confused.... do we know if it was Ragnarok or Human Head that got the moneybag from Epic?

Doesn't really matter that much in the end though. This and Phoenix Point are just the latest two examples that the "we are going to take the money and make a better game" is the obvious bullshit we all knew it would be.

It probably went to the game 'development', so they could justify the delays and shit when they were actually packing in to move under Bethesda.

 

[lashman]

I think it is quite clear that Epic (or well the rampant disinformation by the media that culminated with the overhype of Epic as a Steam killer during the first 4 months of 2019) made Steam more talkative about what they are working (and improve the self promotion of games with the "Best sellers of the month"). The level of communication from Valve on that side has been quite impressive to what we were accostumed to (and well, there is also the comments about culture change inside of Valve that stopped disincouraging Twitter profiles).
In terms of Steam upgrades, I believe none of them are direct answers to Epic, but rather linear upgrades to core issues that currently only Steam has (huge amounts of games and discoverability), as well as upgrade to the core service that were promised long ago and that are viable after depreciation of x32 launcher (Library, btw WHERE IS MY CALENDAR).

I would say that Steam Labs is more of an answer to indies crying of indieapocalypse and Valve ignoring the discoverability problems and the October bug from last year (and well, poaching on interesting ideas pitched by devs such as ichiro or Lars). They are temporary because they are unsure what the correct solution is and want to make sure that the indies know that they are working on them (although I guess most will become core part of the Store given time).

About big devs coming back to Steam, I dont believe they were given "special treatment". Bethesda had to come back for its sp games after unsucessfully trying to launch their own store (will probably try to leave in the future). MS is in an apology tour and offer a better value in Gamepass so the extra sales outside of it are free money. EA is probably trying to also grow their subscription service while recovering possible lost growth in PC and it has been confirmed they didnt get any extra benefit. The only thing is that there is a move to subscription services and direct sales are just extra gravy.

yeah, pretty much all of this

volvo just started listening to people more (or at least showing they're actually listening ... not just people throwing comments into a black hole and hoping someone actually saw them)

like, we already knew they were always talkative and willing to listen to devs during all the dev talks they were at ... but now we also see it on twitter, and on steam itself

 

[ISee]

About big devs coming back to Steam, I dont believe they were given "special treatment".

In terms of Steam upgrades, I believe none of them are direct answers to Epic,

No doubts either. As said, Valve is just doing their thing, barely acknowledging epic. More responsiveness is welcome, but their goals or plans have not shifted.
Publishers coming back to Steam instead of turning to Epic is because they need a strong, stable partner and not a controversial one. Those publishers, especially EA, is controversial enough without the need for further negative perception. No extra care was needed. Just Steam as it is.

For the subscription services being the new future and sold copies just an extra. We'll see, there is already to much competition. I played Jedi Fallen Order through Premiere, finished it and canceled premiere. Probably one of the reasons why EA turned away from SP only games. But their big GaaS game didn't work either. Sounds like a dilemma to me. But it's a futile conversation without numbers and I'm actually relaxed towards those services. I can't and won't subscribe to everything. Movie streaming and music streaming is probably tying up enough budgets already. The chance of every game service surviving is rather small imo and therefore normal game publishing to stay a mayor, important income source and not just an extra imo.
And Halo:Reach is a nice surprise. 160k+ concurrent players on Steam? Despite Game Pass being dirt cheap? That's an interesting message.

 

[Nabs]

lmfao @ Rocket League turning into Fornite with that MTX scheme. Fuck that.

4 dollar player banners? ahahah.

 

[Arsene]

lmfao @ Rocket League turning into Fornite with that MTX scheme. Fuck that.

4 dollar player banners? ahahah.

Its actually significantly worse than Fortnite. You can at least get free vbucks every day if you buy the PVE mode.

 

[Ge0force]

Page not found - RUNE II

www.rune2.com

for people who can't see the linked post:

"successful launch"

Their expectations must have been really low...

 

[eonden]

No doubts either. As said, Valve is just doing their thing, barely acknowledging epic. More responsiveness is welcome, but their goals or plans have not shifted.
Publishers coming back to Steam instead of turning to Epic is because they need a strong, stable partner and not a controversial one. Those publishers, especially EA, is controversial enough without the need for further negative perception. No extra care was needed. Just Steam as it is.

For the subscription services being the new future and sold copies just an extra. We'll see, there is already to much competition. I played Jedi Fallen Order through Premiere, finished it and canceled premiere. Probably one of the reasons why EA turned away from SP only games. But their big GaaS game didn't work either. Sounds like a dilemma to me. But it's a futile conversation without numbers and I'm actually relaxed towards those services. I can't and won't subscribe to everything. Movie streaming and music streaming is probably tying up enough budgets already. The chance of every game service surviving is rather small imo and therefore normal game publishing to stay a mayor, important income source and not just an extra imo.
And Halo:Reach is a nice surprise. 160k+ concurrent players on Steam? Despite Game Pass being dirt cheap? That's an interesting message.

The idea of subscriptions is that you will have a steady revenue stream that will likely end up being higher than what normal people buy yearly from you.. Subscriptions are normally around the cost of 2 AAA valued games a year while the normal attachment rate on consoles is ca 9 at the end of the generation (so in 5 years, the value of the subscription would be around 10 AAA valued games, higher than normal attach rate, and that would be all "your games"). Subscription also work better psychologically as you view them as a smaller investment and more people would be enticed by that (similar to how people buy bundles because they see it as such a great value). There is also the added benefit of basically removing the entry level of GAAS/mtx, where most of their monetization will happen, as they will be able to try them as a F2P (When they arent).

About all services surviving, you are right on that, as I dont expect a ton of them being succesful (in PC we will soon have Ubisoft / EA / MS!!), but not outright die, as part of the growth strategy on most software companies is a move to subscriptions and they base their share value on that hope.

My opinion on Reach, is that currently most PC players are ok with subscriptions but also have a much better understanding of the longevity of games and the ownership of them. A game such as Gears, where people are less likely to be playing in 5 years is more of Gamepass material than a game you expect to be playing in 5-10 years (such as AoE2: DE or Halo), as you want to be less thethered to the Gamepass overlords. To be fair, I expected ca. 80k on Halo, so it totally blew my expectations (albeit I guess I am not that much of a fan of Halo and dont get the hype behind it).

 

[Joe Spangle]

The Steam player numbers for Reach seem to suggest that a lot of people still like to buy games rather than use the subscription service but i guess the price of it is a big factor. It seems cheap enough to make buying it worth it in the long run. Also yeah as eonden says - if you are likely to still be playing a game in 5 years buying it seems like it would be the preferred choice.

 

[Kyougar]

The Steam player numbers for Reach seem to suggest that a lot of people still like to buy games rather than use the subscription service but i guess the price of it is a big factor. It seems cheap enough to make buying it worth it in the long run. Also yeah as eonden says - if you are likely to still be playing a game in 5 years buying it seems like it would be the preferred choice.

is Gamepass Windows 10 only? If so, that is a big reason for many.

 

[ISee]

I understand why they are chasing the subscription model and all your assumptions and explanations are correct, for one service having everything without competition and the need to subscribe to another service. The problem with all those assumptions is that there is no just EA, just Uplay, just Sony, just Microsoft person. We all play games from different publishers and often enough from different platform holders.
Those 9 games over 6 years would not be available through one service, more like 4-5. That alone breaks the good math behind services.

9 games at 60€ are 540€.
9 games for 6 years + a bunch of extra games for 6 years are 600€. Good deal.
9 games for 6 years + a bunch of extra games on 5 different services are 3000€. That would be the 9 games per generation reality.

And this is a huge problem that investors do not like to see and that many people do not seem to take into account when praising subscription services. It's not a good deal, never will. Assuming that consumers won't see this is like assuming that everybody will jump over to EGS because of free games and no other choice. Makes sense during a business meeting, doesn't seem to work that well in real life.
There are a lot of filler games that will not subjectively increase the value for many subscribers (PS+ anyone?), there are long time periods without new AAA games being available (Ghost Recon BR released july/1029, watch dogs 3 will release march 2020?), it's not your games and getting everything through subscriptions is too expansive.

I also disagree with your assumption that services are the end of GaaS or micro-transactions. Subscriptions need the GaaS model to stay relevant and mtx are the extra delightful gravy.
You want your consumers to hold on to your service for 72 months and you need to give them a very good reason to do so. There is one service that was able to achieve this: World of Warcraft. It's addictive, something with slow and constant progression over years, something where your subscribers form communities that anker them, something where you can sell cosmetics to make extra cash, something that can be redesigned over and over again.
In short: WoW is the prime example of a Game as a service. And now imagine subscribing to WoW and getting extra games as a bonus.
Those kind of games are quintessential for services and the reason why Breaking Point and Anthem are, what they are. Unfulfilling, stretched out grinds that are supposed to waste your time for months.

I'm not saying subscription services will fail. I like them and see them as a bonus to my game purchases, but not as the main dish.
They will succeed and are here to stay, it's just not the money printing service and guaranteed positive income provider for everybody. And that's what this industry seems to be expecting.

 

[eonden]

I understand why they are chasing the subscription model and all your assumptions and explanations are correct, for one service having everything without competition and the need to subscribe to another service. The problem with all those assumptions is that there is no just EA, just Uplay, just Sony, just Microsoft person. We all play games from different publishers and often enough from different platform holders.
Those 9 games over 6 years would not be available through one service, more like 4-5. That alone breaks the good math behind services.

9 games at 60€ are 540€.
9 games for 6 years + a bunch of extra games for 6 years are 600€. Good deal.
9 games for 6 years + a bunch of extra games on 5 different services are 3000€. That would be the 9 games per generation reality.

And this is a huge problem that investors do not like to see and that many people do not seem to take into account when praising subscription services. It's not a good deal, never will. Assuming that consumers won't see this is like assuming that everybody will jump over to EGS because of free games and no other choice. Makes sense during a business meeting, doesn't seem to work that well in real life.
There are a lot of filler games that will not subjectively increase the value for many subscribers (PS+ anyone?), there are long time periods without new AAA games being available (Ghost Recon BR released july/1029, watch dogs 3 will release march 2020?), it's not your games and getting everything through subscriptions is too expansive.

I agree on that the fragmentation of services will be a problem, we are already seeing that problem with television, where the fragmentation is just making people avoid some services. It makes sense when you are the only one, but as the subscription market gets more and more crowded, the user acquisition cost becomes much higher.
About lack of new shiny content, the main idea is that there are enough games (both new and old) that entice the user to stay. Most users also dont think on subscriptions on a month to month basis but consider part of the base life cost. GAAS / MP games will also help during those times as they will help prolongue the play time of games into those "wait times".
The Ubisoft situation is more due to having to rethink their launch strategy after the huge backlash of Ghost Recon, as otherwise they would have had a more standard launch window.

I also disagree with your assumption that services are the end of GaaS or micro-transactions. Subscriptions need the GaaS model to stay relevant and mtx are the extra delightful gravy.
You want your consumers to hold on to your service for 72 months and you need to give them a very good reason to do so. There is one service that was able to achieve this: World of Warcraft. It's addictive, something with slow and constant progression over years, something where your subscribers form communities that anker them, something where you can sell cosmetics to make extra cash, something that can be redesigned over and over again.
In short: WoW is the prime example of a Game as a service. And now imagine subscribing to WoW and getting extra games as a bonus.
Those kind of games are quintessential for services and the reason why Breaking Point and Anthem are, what they are. Unfulfilling, stretched out grinds that are supposed to waste your time for months.

I'm not saying subscription services will fail. I like them and see them as a bonus to my game purchases, but not as the main dish.
They will succeed and are here to stay, it's just not the money printing service and guaranteed positive income provider for everybody. And that's what this industry seems to be expecting.

Thats more or less what I said, I think you misread / I didnt say it well enough

"There is also the added benefit of basically removing the entry level of GAAS/mtx, where most of their monetization will happen, as they will be able to try them as a F2P (When they arent)."

GAAS will see an increase in playerbase as the base entry cost for people in the ecosystem will be 0. In GAAS, the main money driver is the mtx, with the launch window sales being a plus. As you said, they are also a core part of the service as they prolongue the live of the games and make people want to stay in it longer.

 

[MJunioR]

lovely

 

[lashman]

lovely

looooooooooooooooooooooool

 

[pahamrick]

Spend millions on meh exclusives, too cheap to pay for likes/dislike bots in addition to view bots. SAD!

 

[Panda Pedinte]

lovely

lmao

 

[Mor]

Once more I come tom this thread just to say that, today is the day, the first EGS exclusive comes to Steam (RDR2 today, Hide and Seek and Hades in 4 days, Ashen in 3) and also want to remind you that spreadsheet still exists and I keep updating it for fun weekly, so if you are interested, please, check it out as much as you want

See you again here in about 8 months or so, when I need to share something, in the meantime, NINJA MODE ON!

 

[Wok]

EXPOSED!

 

[MJunioR]

Once more I come tom this thread just to say that, today is the day, the first EGS exclusive comes to Steam (RDR2 today, Hide and Seek tomorrow) and also want to remind you that spreadsheet still exists and I keep updating it for fun weekly, so if you are interested, please, check it out as much as you want

Hide & Seek actually got delayed to next week, so the first EGS launch exclusive coming to Steam is Ashen

 

[Mor]

Hide & Seek actually got delayed to next week, so the first EGS launch exclusive coming to Steam is Ashen

I was going to update it as I updated the document, sorry, my bad.

 

[m_dorian]

lovely

It is Youtube's fault to allow this thing to happen but it says plenty about Epic and their "competition" approach.

 

[MJunioR]

I was going to update it as I updated the document, sorry, my bad.

All good Mor, the spreadsheet you did is incredibly helpful and I can't praise enough the work you do to keep it up to date. No one can't keep up with all these dates after all, especially when devs can't even bother to do a proper announcement of delays like the H&S one. Sorry if I sounded rude or anything.

 

[Mor]

All good Mor, the spreadsheet you did is incredibly helpful and I can't praise enough the work you do to keep it up to date. No one can't keep up with all these dates after all, especially when devs can't even bother to do a proper announcement of delays like the H&S one. Sorry if I sounded rude or anything.

Much appreciated

 

[ISee]

No idea what you all want. 12.8 million views sounds legit. Shenmue is huge and the interest in PC gaming even more hugger thanks to Epic.