News Epic Games Store

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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After cross referencing with Mor 's spreadsheet I think it works as follows (there are a couple of which I'm not sure or I couldn't find:

[Hidden content]
Thanks for doing this, glad my spreadsheet was helpful, results are within the expected to be honest, as for the ???? I will check later, too bad we don't have the uncensored version, it would have been great.

BTW, did you all notice that both WWZ and Division 2 have a recoup period of 24 months? ;)
 

Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
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The recoup period for both The Division 2 and Anno 1800 was 24 months. Ubisoft got $45 million for just the two of them?
45 Million! 👀

These are joke sums of money. If they have that much money to burn why not put some into the client development or funding 2-3 new games to attract customers? I just dont get it, they clearly have an abundance of cash, It it just a fundamental aversion to creating anything of value to the customer other than offering them an exclusive game?

They totally mis-read the PC audience. Must've thought people would just flock to wherever the game is being sold. Glad PC'ers have given eggs the cold shoulder.
 

yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
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Man, I really want to know what is the fourth game. $15 million guarantee, $300k sales.
Has to be Control. The release dates don't match but I really can't imagine anything else from that time period that would cost 15 and make so little. Maybe it was internally delayed from the moneyhat date with their spreadsheet.

The Outer Worlds is another candidate since it also launched on Gamepass so that would explain such a severe flop lol.
 
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TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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Man, I really want to know what is the fourth game. $15 million guarantee, $300k sales.
Looking on EGS with the waybackmachine gave me nothing, the only game I could think of was the last season of the walking dead
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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45 Million! 👀

These are joke sums of money. If they have that much money to burn why not put some into the client development or funding 2-3 new games to attract customers? I just dont get it, they clearly have an abundance of cash, It it just a fundamental aversion to creating anything of value to the customer other than offering them an exclusive game?

They totally mis-read the PC audience. Must've thought people would just flock to wherever the game is being sold. Glad PC'ers have given eggs the cold shoulder.
It's faster and easier to throw money at things that already exist instead of using it to create something entirely new that can potentially take years until there's even something to show.
Thankfully it didn't work out as expected.
 

Arsene

On a break
Apr 17, 2019
3,271
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Canada
Looking on EGS with the waybackmachine gave me nothing, the only game I could think of was the last season of the walking dead
Walking Dead is likely what it was. They had exclusivity on the whole series after they got relisted. Ontop of almost entirely funding the production of Ep 3/4 of the Final Season.Then they had exclusivity on the “Definitive Edition” rerelease later that year.

TWD is a big franchise. Exclusivity on 6 games (1-4, Michonne and Definitive) adds up.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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A developer poking fun at them may help separate them further from any presumption of moral authority. Nobody wants to join a group of prudes that are being made fun of.
:rolleyes:

I often jokingly claimed that Tim's way to develop strategies is hilariously simple and similar to that of a kindergarden kid.
.
.
.
Now I know it is true.
 

TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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Reading those e-mails and seeing that the whole ooblets drama was design by Epic to fuck with people ia some next level sociopath, question now is, ooblets devs agreed to be the punching bags in Sweeney's fetich for money, or they didn't saw the backlash coming? Epic people cleary knew the post wasn't go well with the public.
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Any way to check how many copies a game sold in that "overview" sheet of wave 1 titles? I don't really understand what it all means. So recoup period means exclusivity period, right? What does "extended lifetime recoup %" mean? What is "MG"?
 

Vantr

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2021
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Reading those e-mails and seeing that the whole ooblets drama was design by Epic to fuck with people ia some next level sociopath, question now is, ooblets devs agreed to be the punching bags in Sweeney's fetich for money, or they didn't saw the backlash coming? Epic people cleary knew the post wasn't go well with the public.
The whole Ooblets drama was wild. While Epic did steer them down that press release the original draft was written by the devs and the insulting tone was still there after the external agency and K L Smith advised to reduce it. Also another note that was that the devs did mention that anyone who was "trolling" Steam vs EGS drama wouldn't fit into the current/future fanbase. So I'd say the Ooblets devs knew what they were getting into.

meanwhile at Creative assembly :-D
That's how they get you, free games but the bundles cost full price. The multi-bundle future is here!
 
Dec 5, 2018
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Any way to check how many copies a game sold in that "overview" sheet of wave 1 titles? I don't really understand what it all means. So recoup period means exclusivity period, right? What does "extended lifetime recoup %" mean?
LTD Recoup is the money epic/the game made.

Recoup period is the period for which epic takes all the money that comes in (for early games it was the same as the exclusivity period, but as we learnt thanks to the trial most games have a lifetime recoup disconected from the exclusivity).

Expected lifetime recoup % means how much money they expect to make back.
 
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eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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Any way to check how many copies a game sold in that "overview" sheet of wave 1 titles? I don't really understand what it all means. So recoup period means exclusivity period, right? What does "extended lifetime recoup %" mean? What is "MG"?
You cant see how many copies the game sold because they only care about revenue and game price is different between regions

Recoup preiod is not the exclusivity period, it is the time the dev is not supposed to get any extra money unless they sell above expectations. Normally i was only 1 year (so same as exclusivity period) but they renegotiated in some cases to extend it because of how little money they got from them.
Extended Lifetime Recoup % is basically where they expect to end up after a set period of time in the "Money we made from them / Money we paid them". Considering a logarithmic curve where sales in the last years is basically meaningless.

MG i s Minimum Guarantee, aka the moneyhat.
 
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beep boop

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Dec 6, 2018
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Recoup period is the period for which epic takes all the money that comes in (for early games it was the same as the exclusivity period, but as we learnt thanks to the trial most games have a lifetime recoup disconected from the exclusivity).
It says lifetime on Dauntless and the only place that’s available on PC is Epic. So all its money just goes to them? Seems a little wild.
 
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bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
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Yeah someone on the notoriously humourless r/fuckepic cross referenced them as well with the hilarious losses.


Ashen would have to be the lowest of the 3.

Might have been some delays top explain the missing names. Outer Worlds was october 2019.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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question now is, ooblets devs agreed to be the punching bags in Sweeney's fetich for money, or they didn't saw the backlash coming?
I'd say: 50% they agreed and 50% they were "manipulated" to agree.

I imagine getting somebody to invest in your own creative idea is a big deal. Especially when you are quasi a freelancer and that investment gives you security and guarantees the survival of your family for the next, foreseeable future.
Add a bit of charisma and sweet talk during the negotiating phase and inexperienced people will start feeling gratitude. Gratitude that can make you jump over your head to defend the new feeding hand at all cost.

It's all a downward spiral from here. Epic is passively fueling you, because your message fits their agenda. You get trapped in your own inexperience, personality and increasing rage. Mastermind Tim sees an opportunity to takedown the important r/fuckepic community and to discredit the people on "salty" Resetera...

---

Which is funny, isn't it? People, on other forums, told me that me complaining about Epic over and over again brings no results. A nameless enraged crowd is not even being noticed in the days of brilliant, business people doing business things.

Seems to me like they do read and even see themselves compelled to take actions to discredit everybody who is complaining about Epic exclusives.
Good job everybody, keep on complaining. It gets on their nerves.
 

Nabs

Hyper˗Toxic Pro˗Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
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The Ooblets stuff was wild. The initial negativity could have easily been brushed aside. Just say you're a small, two person dev team, who can now self-publish and release the best version of their game with the extra funding. Let folks know that the 1.0 will hit Steam eventually, and everyone will be able to play it eventually. Instead, they went hard at anyone who may have an issue with it, fueling the fire for no reason. I'm still surprised by how terrible it was handled.

honestly - it most likely doesn't (as far as devs/pubs deciding to sign the deals) ... but it DOES piss off Tim and Sergey ... and that brings me incredible joy

:toucan:
I'm just waiting for the page dedicated to me and Wok.

:sweeney_ducktales:
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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The Ooblets doc was uh insightful. "Gee willikers, we did not anticipate our message crafted to be immature and flippant would result in a bunch of people responding in kind." Really though? I do feel bad for them, but.. yeah.
 
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Arc

MetaMember
Sep 19, 2020
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Yeah someone on the notoriously humourless r/fuckepic cross referenced them as well with the hilarious losses.

Ashen would have to be the lowest of the 3.

Might have been some delays top explain the missing names. Outer Worlds was october 2019.
One thing I noticed is that they really scaled down their minimum guarantees for later titles. Tony Hawk was only $4 million for example. It makes me wonder how much they paid for the Square Enix titles.

Also Tim Sweeney is an obnoxious manchild and 99% of the reason I dislike EGS and Epic in general.
 

Vantr

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2021
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Is it me or are the messages from the Ooblets devs badly redacted? You can pretty much make out the whole message.

One thing I noticed is that they really scaled down their minimum guarantees for later titles. Tony Hawk was only $4 million for example. It makes me wonder how much they paid for the Square Enix titles.
I'm not sure if the MGs started dwindling down because of poor store performance or because the titles later on weren't as "big" I do recall Borderlands 3 having a big MG. But I get the feeling they're focusing more on big titles so I'd expect the SE titles to have big MGs.
 
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dude

🧿🧿🧿
Jul 15, 2021
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The Ooblets stuff was wild. The initial negativity could have easily been brushed aside. Just say you're a small, two person dev team, who can now self-publish and release the best version of their game with the extra funding. Let folks know that the 1.0 will hit Steam eventually, and everyone will be able to play it eventually. Instead, they went hard at anyone who may have an issue with it, fueling the fire for no reason. I'm still surprised by how terrible it was handled.
I agree, but it's hard for me to stay mad at a 2 person team being offered a MG in today's gaming landscape and then being thrown into the midst of an internet fight they clearly weren't well versed in.
I think Epic should have known what's going to happen and prepared the team with more support, pre-preparing a short FAQ etc. Dropping this small team in the middle of an internet fight was a recipe for disaster.
 

ListeningGarden

目をそらした瞬間
Nov 12, 2018
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ngl i am aghast at some of these numbers... even with some guaranteed minimums being cosmically overestimated, the ytd earnings are brutal. have to wonder if this trend continued and the influence it had on how they threw money at stuff. did they become more selective and strategic? or did the deals become far less honeyed, which saw less devs willing to ink those contracts?
 

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
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ngl i am aghast at some of these numbers... even with some guaranteed minimums being cosmically overestimated, the ytd earnings are brutal. have to wonder if this trend continued and the influence it had on how they threw money at stuff. did they become more selective and strategic? or did the deals become far less honeyed, which saw less devs willing to ink those contracts?
looking at all the egsclusives (and freebies) in 2021 - i'm gonna go with - the latter
 

Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
2,670
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ngl i am aghast at some of these numbers... even with some guaranteed minimums being cosmically overestimated, the ytd earnings are brutal. have to wonder if this trend continued and the influence it had on how they threw money at stuff. did they become more selective and strategic? or did the deals become far less honeyed, which saw less devs willing to ink those contracts?
Who knows, we'll see in the future. Maybe Epic decided to fund its own games through deals and acquisitions, or maybe they saw better results from the giveaways. Either way Epic's current strategy seems to be following the "winding down" model as presented in the Epic vs Apple trial documents. I do expect some sort of Hail Mary from Timmy before he's forced to admit defeat.
 

thekeats1999

MetaMember
Dec 10, 2018
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I think there is also a change in tactic as well that is coming into play. We know they were willing to drop a lot of money on a Sony deal. Borderlands want cheap. Guessing red dead want cheap. And if the rumours are true about final fantasy the square deal will not have been cheap. Ubisoft can't have been cheap with a 24 month deal either.

I think they have moved on from saviours of the indie market to an attempt to be the one stop shop for AAA games.

However that is another misunderstanding of the market. I don't game on pc because of the AAA market. That's just an added bonus. I'm here for the valheims, Minecraft, stardew valleys and terrarias.

Plus I have been gaming on pc for close to 30 years. I am used to waiting for games to come.
 

dude

🧿🧿🧿
Jul 15, 2021
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I don't think Epic need to "admit defeat". They're trying to break into a market that is dominated by Steam, they should have expected several years of losses before making any headway. What they need is to change strategy, to understand they can't make their store happen out of thin air by simply buying exclusivity. This is a game of patience and hard work, especially when going against an opponent like Steam.
They need to take a couple of years just working on their store and making it a viable product, rather than the horrible mess it is now. They also need to lose the curation and open up their store so that it can grow organically. They can easily keep funding the store with Fortnite profits in the meantime.
 

Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
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B-but exclusivity works on consoles, why aren't PC players just accepting it!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Ooblets doc was uh insightful. "Gee willikers, we did not anticipate our message crafted to be immature and flippant would result in a bunch of people responding in kind." Really though? I do feel bad for them, but.. yeah.
I fart in their general direction. If you sign off on a corporate-written piece meant to specifically make people angry, don't go crying when it does its fucking job.
 

MJunioR

MetaMember
Mar 13, 2019
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ngl i am aghast at some of these numbers... even with some guaranteed minimums being cosmically overestimated, the ytd earnings are brutal. have to wonder if this trend continued and the influence it had on how they threw money at stuff. did they become more selective and strategic? or did the deals become far less honeyed, which saw less devs willing to ink those contracts?
A mixture of both
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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I don't think Epic need to "admit defeat". They're trying to break into a market that is dominated by Steam, they should have expected several years of losses before making any headway. What they need is to change strategy, to understand they can't make their store happen out of thin air by simply buying exclusivity. This is a game of patience and hard work, especially when going against an opponent like Steam.
They need to take a couple of years just working on their store and making it a viable product, rather than the horrible mess it is now. They also need to lose the curation and open up their store so that it can grow organically. They can easily keep funding the store with Fortnite profits in the meantime.
Yes. That's the reasonable, long term approach. Add good event sales, maybe exclusives discounts for hot new releases and you'd have a plan that doesn't involve antagonizing your future costumers.

But that's not their way of thinking. Imagine them as 14 year old billionaire bullys who seek praise, instant gratification and are trapped in a containment of egocentric endorsement.

How to people like that get into power? I don't know. But after reading up on the horrific Blizzard story, involving suicide, sexual harassment, a Cosby suite...
I believe this industry has more of those bullys then I ever realized.