News Epic Games Store

[Kyougar]

In that german dev roundtable thingy that was posted a while back, one dev who got an offer from Epic but refused implied that the egs contract might not be as simple as "you get a bunch of moneys day 1 and then nothing"), but rather paid out on a monthly basis. He didn't go into details, probably because NDA's and stuff and contracts could be different for different games, but might be worth keeping in mind.
Not sure if this would be better or worse than one big lump sum payment though. I guess better in the sense that you'll at least have some money each month even with 0 sales.

The issue with those contracts are the potential small print clauses.
And really, ANYTHING from it could be a pitfall for the dev

• The payment could be 1/12th of the maximum sum(*) every month for 12 months. Good? Hell no! If you were banking on a big payout from the first day sales, you are beholden to the trickle of money every month instead of 70 to 90% of the money on month 1 (if your game has no legs)
• the payment could be staggered based on the expected performance on Steam (like in the video, where he told that the starting negotiation point was their forecast of steam sales. So you could get 70% on month 1, 20% on month 2 and then 1% for every remaining month.

ANOTHER THING:
The contract payment could be based on the success of the game on the previous month. So lets say they told Tim they will sell 40% of their units in the first month and Tim pays out 40% of the exclusive money. And they stagger the rest of the sales in the next 11 months. Here comes the gut punch: There could be a clause, that the next payment is dependent on the sales of the previous month. Only if 80% of the expected sales were sold, will you get the next payout. They will never see more than 40% of the money if the game bombs.

We don't know if such contracts exist, surely not for the AAA titles. But it is a possibility, especially if Tim just wants to fatten his lineup but not empty his coffers. That could also be a reason why the exclusive lineup has thinned out, I don't believe that all of those devs suddenly grew an artistic spine and threw Tim out of the door because they uphold the freedom of PC gaming. There would be enough devs who would sell their souls.
Dev's can't talk openly about it, because of NDA's but they talk between each other and when they tell horror stories of only getting paid a pittance instead of millions because they didn't meet the sales criteria, more devs would be more wary about those exclusive contracts.


Tales from my ass, but Tim and Epic would be stupid if they don't have parachute and expectation clauses in the contracts. Anyone remember E.T. the game?

 

[beep boop]

Someone should trick Tim into sending Kamiya a message over Twitter.

 

[ISee]

Someone should trick Tim into sending Kamiya a message over Twitter.

I'm pretty sure he already did. After all the KS campaign explicitly mentions Steam.
Which is an aphrodisiac to Tim. Or rather like a light bulb to a moth? You decide.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Which is an aphrodisiac to Tim. Or rather like a light bulb to a moth? You decide.

Shit to a fly?

 

[C-Dub]

Shit to a fly?

This would work if Steam was shit, and Sweeney was the fly. EGS is shit and the devs who go to it are the flies.

I'm showing my age here, but I remember when milk used to be delivered to the door in glass bottles with foil tops on it, and if you didn't leave a plastic cap out for the milkman to put on top, the magpies would come out and pinch the shiny cap, in turn spoiling all the milk.

Epic/Sweeney is the magpie.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Round our way the smol birds would peck holes in the milk tops to get the cream then the Magpies would come along and take the tops and then cats/foxes would come along to knock over the bottle and drink the milk. Animals are pricks.

 

[Swenhir]

Round our way the smol birds would peck holes in the milk tops to get the cream then the Magpies would come along and take the tops and then cats/foxes would come along to knock over the bottle and drink the milk. Animals are pricks.

This makes me smile more than anything, but I guess if I wanted to have cereals that morning I'd feel otherwise .

 

[lashman]

launch is going great, i see ..

 

[TioChuck]

launch is going great, i see ..

I don't think they care, the guy from Rebellion was pretty happy with the Epic payout back when they announced the deal, they probably released this game without any fanfare just to fulfill the contract.

 

[Le Pertti]

Wait, so to get controller support in one game the whole launcher needs to update?

 

[lashman]

Wait, so to get controller support in one game the whole launcher needs to update?

apparently ...

¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[C-Dub]

I know Epic doesn't care about features, but breaking controller support is a little bit different than simply not having added features.

Seriously though, what a heap of garbage.

 

[lashman]

but wait ... it gets better even more stupid:

 

[Swenhir]

but wait ... it gets better even more stupid:

I know I'm grumpy today but even to me it makes no sense how the software - the downloader - for the game can break the game itself. The only way is if it doesn't distribute the game files correctly which, for the makers of a world-class engine and a store over a year in existence is pretty abysmal.

 

[lashman]

I know I'm grumpy today but even to me it makes no sense how the software - the downloader - for the game can break the game itself. The only way is if it doesn't distribute the game files correctly which, for the makers of a world-class engine and a store over a year in existence is pretty abysmal.

my guess is, since the launcher itself is an UE4 app (yes, really), it takes over all controller inputs and doesn't let go of them when you start a game ...

 

[Swenhir]

my guess is, since the launcher itself is an UE4 app (yes, really), it takes over all controller inputs and doesn't let go of them when you start a game ...

That's a reasonable explanation, thank you.

 

[lashman]

That's a reasonable explanation, thank you.

no problem but, as i said - i'm 100% guessing ... it might be something completely different ... who knows

 

[Hektor]

but wait ... it gets better even more stupid:

STEAM BAD
EPIC GOOD

 

[gabbo]

my guess is, since the launcher itself is an UE4 app (yes, really), it takes over all controller inputs and doesn't let go of them when you start a game ...

Can you even use controllers with the launcher/store? I would think theyd have disabled controller input altogether, but i mean, I shouldn't be shocked by the ineptness of the EGS, but I am none the less.

 

[lashman]

Can you even use controllers with the launcher/store? I would think theyd have disabled controller input altogether, but i mean, I shouldn't be shocked by the ineptness of the EGS, but I am none the less.

yup .... it's like with VR headsets ... where half of UE4 games start up on a headset (when they're not VR games, and essentially don't even display anything in VR) because that's the default for UE4, and devs forget (or don't even know about it) to disable it when compiling their games

 

[gabbo]

yup .... it's like with VR headsets ... where half of UE4 games start up on a headset (when they're not VR games, and essentially don't even display anything in VR) because that's the default for UE4, and devs forget (or don't even know about it) to disable it when compiling their games

A third party dev, sure that's an oversight I can see them making. Not the company who designs the engine the store is built on. That's just laziness and stupidity. Why build the store in UE4 at all instead of just using C++ or C# or java in the first place? Then again they just switched over to C++ from whatever UScript used to be in UE4 so baby steps I guess

 

[Cordelia]

launch is going great, i see ..

Tweet is gone, what is it?

 

[lashman]

Tweet is gone, what is it?

 

[Wok]

 

[uraizen]

Isn't the narrative that the epic cash helps to improve the exclusives before release?

It was also to keep a game's IP from being devalued. Btw, here's $10 coupons for every game and two more free games for several more months.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Apparently Metro Exodus releasing 15th Feb on Steam. Curious to know the price.

 

[TioChuck]

Apparently Metro Exodus releasing 15th Feb on Steam. Curious to know the price.

If they try to sell this at full price shit will be funny.

 

[madjoki]

Weird release time says to me "We are releasing on Steam the second exclusivity agreement ends". lol.

 

[ISee]

If they try to sell this at full price shit will be funny.

By the way: The second and last dlc is coming on the 11th.
I wouldn't be surprised if the second steam release has a game + dlc combo.

 

[Tizoc]

That's a neat looking skin IMO.

 

[Arsene]

That's a neat looking skin IMO.

Most of the collab skins are pretty well done. Even though im still sad they never made a Joker skin for the Batman collab.

 

[Wok]

 

[Nabs]

Ooh, Aztez.

 

[gabbo]

Weird release time says to me "We are releasing on Steam the second exclusivity agreement ends". lol.

The publishers who have deals ending soon have seen the success of other games that have come to steam after EGS. They want that money, they're just couching it in pleasing language to try and come off as remorseful and appeal to our sense of forgiveness...

 

[ISee]

Metro Exodus is just 19.80€ on the win store. Wonder if that will be the Steam price.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

If they try to sell this at full price shit will be funny.

 

[lashman]

Weird release time says to me "We are releasing on Steam the second exclusivity agreement ends". lol.

but it sold SO WELL on egs ...

 

[TioChuck]

Curious to know if 3rd parties will want to switch to Steam keys instead, it probably will sell better.

 

[fantomena]

I found 2033 and Last Light to be better. Exodus isn't a bad game, it just misses the calustrophobic Moscow underground that I liked a lot from the 2 first games.

 

[Joe Spangle]

Its a sort of sad turn of events for me. I really liked the first Metros but with all the egs stuff this one is kind of bearing the brunt of protest as it was the first big one to take the moneyhat. As such im just not that bothered by it.
Maybe in a year or so when i have a RTX card.
And its cheap.

 

[ISee]

but it sold SO WELL on egs ...

It sold well indeed,

See more

During the last couple of hours before it vanished from Steam for exactly a year. Exactly one year.

it just misses the calustrophobic Moscow underground that I liked a lot from the 2 first games.

It is a different game in many regards, no doubts there.
But personally, I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous games.

 

[Bonfires Down]

It's actually pretty amazing how badly third party publishers fucked up regarding PC gaming launchers. Some of the biggest publishers could have banded together and created their own launcher and completely circumvented Valve's cut. Obviously EA, Ubi and Bethesda have been wanting to avoid Steam, but they probably could have gotten Take Two, Capcom and Square Enix to join up too, along with smaller publishers. That's a huge amount of potential exclusives.

Instead, they each decided to go off and do their own thing, and none of them have really created more than a barebones launcher. Had they created one launcher with features even somewhat comparable to Steam they would have been in a very good position.

I think the biggest issue was that they each wanted only their own games to be displayed on their launcher and not have to compete with other publishers for mindshare. So short sightedness and greed ultimately cost them more than a long term plan with short term losses would have.

 

[ISee]

There can be no cooperation in a gaming world where the ultimate goal is to create a game service that is able to waste the consumers time on a daily basis for years. So that he doesn't play products from other publishers, while milking him with lottery mechanics and other micro transactions.

 

[Sygmaelle]

Metro is the shittiest fps franchise to date tbh, just give us Stalker. Bought Exodus gold for 20$ and honestly everyone is better off playing it from gamepass

 

[yuraya]

It's actually pretty amazing how badly third party publishers fucked up regarding PC gaming launchers. Some of the biggest publishers could have banded together and created their own launcher and completely circumvented Valve's cut. Obviously EA, Ubi and Bethesda have been wanting to avoid Steam, but they probably could have gotten Take Two, Capcom and Square Enix to join up too, along with smaller publishers. That's a huge amount of potential exclusives.

Instead, they each decided to go off and do their own thing, and none of them have really created more than a barebones launcher. Had they created one launcher with features even somewhat comparable to Steam they would have been in a very good position.

I think the biggest issue was that they each wanted only their own games to be displayed on their launcher and not have to compete with other publishers for mindshare. So short sightedness and greed ultimately cost them more than a long term plan with short term losses would have.

None of the big publishers ever really gave a shit about PC gaming until Valve showed them their games can sell a lot.

Today's PC/Steam boom didn't really take off until like 2013/2014. That was when their games like DOTA/CSGO hit it really big. That is when early access and indie games really took off too. And ofc around that time is when JP devs started showing support for the platform. Also Twitch/Streaming started becoming really big.

By that point it was way too late for any of these big pubs to really succeed by banding together. They don't have the playerbase or the killer app to make it work. Today you literally needed a juggernaut like Fortnite to even be able to slightly compete with Steam. They had to spend a lot of money to enter the market too. And even then EGS brought in peanuts last year in terms of revenue.

The one company that fucked up the most over the years was Blizzard imo. If they went the Steam path back 10-15 years ago they would have been a giant competitor to Steam today. Would have probably been even bigger than Steam based on how huge WoW was. But Blizzard only ever gave a shit about themselves.

 

[Mivey]

I found 2033 and Last Light to be better. Exodus isn't a bad game, it just misses the calustrophobic Moscow underground that I liked a lot from the 2 first games.

Don't agree, I love the open world areas of Exodus,, and that they allow you to use so much stealth. It's not the best at this, there are fairly clear moments when you just need to fight. The focus on exploration is also great, and how much the mood and atmosphere varies from area to area. The Volga level feels almost like a different game compared to the Caspian one.
Aside from this, it's also great to expand the actual setting and to see what goes on around the rest of the world.
To me Exodus feels like the logical conclusion to the first two games, and ultimately surpasses them in every way.
That being said, just from a story perspective, I'm almost certain the next game will feature a return to the Metro.

 

[Alextended]

I liked the original, the first sequel did improve on it mechanically even if it lost a bit of something in the process and exodus I've yet to finish, it's kinda boring, I think I was just past the desert area or whatever, or maybe still there at that enemy base compound thing, I forget, it's been a while since I played. A 2033 style game with the budget of exodus to expand on some areas, systems and the polish of all the scripted sequences and stuff, would have been Half-Life tier rad.

 

[eonden]

It's actually pretty amazing how badly third party publishers fucked up regarding PC gaming launchers. Some of the biggest publishers could have banded together and created their own launcher and completely circumvented Valve's cut. Obviously EA, Ubi and Bethesda have been wanting to avoid Steam, but they probably could have gotten Take Two, Capcom and Square Enix to join up too, along with smaller publishers. That's a huge amount of potential exclusives.

Instead, they each decided to go off and do their own thing, and none of them have really created more than a barebones launcher. Had they created one launcher with features even somewhat comparable to Steam they would have been in a very good position.

I think the biggest issue was that they each wanted only their own games to be displayed on their launcher and not have to compete with other publishers for mindshare. So short sightedness and greed ultimately cost them more than a long term plan with short term losses would have.

The problem is that that level of cooperation would be way higher than you believe. Who would be the one in charge of the store? Will tehy create a separate company where each big publisher pays an investment? If so, why would they do that for a small market? A cooperation for them to be in equal footing getting all the money implies a big degree of cooperation that is not that simple, and a lesser cooperation (where they might get a better cut for exclusive in the other people store) would be questioned by investors because they could be getting all the money in their own launcher.

Origin actually did a good job when it relaunched, actually being a serious competitor but the lack of big day 1 wins made them treat it as the least important platform and not upgrade it at all, only widening the gap with Steam and letting the growth of the PC platform flew by. My fear is that it will happen similar with Epic (well not in 1 year but after 2 or 3) where they see they didnt make a dent and just leave their platform stagnate while it makes some money, but not really "widening" the userbase. Basically, most companies want a day 0 impact when PC is always about slowly fighting the piracy and creating a worthwhile service that keep growing slowly with time.

In a "who could have done this" as yuraya mentions, the only one that could have competed with Steam was Blizzard (which was irc the first one to have its own online "launcher"), but the problem is that they are somehow less capable than Valve on keeping things on track and the WoW money helped hide a ton of their deficiencies and stagnate.

 

[C-Dub]

The problem is many people have seen Steam and the kinds of revenue it brings in, and they want a piece of that action and/or to take an extra slice of Valve's 30% for themselves. This explains Uplay, Origin, Bethesda and EGS.

The problem is, and they all come to realise it one day, is that they don't want to pay for continual features or support that Steam has. Their dream is to not pay a 30% cut and just have a static launcher that doesn't change. It is just an app they make, finish, release, and then rake in profits for.

Not only is it a fundamental misunderstanding of what Steam is, but also a spit in the face of their customers. The only publisher launchers that has ever really managed to do its thing without Steam is Blizzard's Battle.net and CDPR with GOG.com, and that's because both already had a presence on the platform that was worth a damn. When someone like EA or Ubisoft, who will take a ginormous shit on the platform depending on which way the wind is blowing, suddenly ask you to trust them with an account, launcher, store and all of that, I think a lot of people scoff at it.

 

[Bonfires Down]

You all make good points. It’s just so strange to me how nobody has truly attempted to create a Steam competitor and get their own share of that 30%. Steam has had slow but steady growth for over a decade so none of its success should have been a surprise. EA gave away a handful of old games and thought that would be enough

GOG has kinda tried but they will always be limited by their no DRM stance. And Epic, but I do think they are disappointed by their results so far. If they keep working on it they have a shot, but it’s going to take years and hundreds of millions. We’ll see if they have the strength to see it through to the end or if they will give up halfway through.