News Epic Games Store

[curi0usBystander]

Here’s 16 pages of what Epic wants after winning its Google app store lawsuit

It’s a lot.

www.theverge.com

Google objects to Epic's proposed changes to Play Store policy

Google has filed its objections against Epic Games' recent call for the courts to enforce a variety of changes to polic…

www.gamesindustry.biz

In case someone wants to read google response

 

[Arc]

How Sker Ritual's 1.0 release redefined 'sleeper hit'

Also: some estimates on players for Epic Games Store & lots of news.

newsletter.gamediscover.co

Some estimates for the number of people who actually play the EGS freebies.

 

[Mor]

How Sker Ritual's 1.0 release redefined 'sleeper hit'

Also: some estimates on players for Epic Games Store & lots of news.

newsletter.gamediscover.co

Some estimates for the number of people who actually play the EGS freebies.

OH HI THERE!

 

[Ge0force]

Some estimates for the number of people who actually play the EGS freebies.

10-15% is more than I expected...

 

[bobnowhere]

Lol, wonder where those numbers came from.

 

[Mor]

Lol, wonder where those numbers came from.

If I told you I would have to kill you

 

[lashman]

If I told you I would have to kill you

 

[fantomena]

Not sure anyone remembers it (I didn't until now), but that crime boss game has a free weekend until tommorrow.

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/crime-boss

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

So Hades 2 is the number 1 seller on Epic Games Store, but it's the 73rd most played game.

 

[Arc]

So Hades 2 is the number 1 seller on Epic Games Store, but it's the 73rd most played game.

It's currently the 14th most played on Steam by daily users. Probably a few thousand sold on EGS and several hundred thousand sold on Steam.

 

[Arc]

It's actually lower than pre-OG as there was a really weird spike yesterday that took it from 1.9 million to 2.3 million.

The numbers will pop up again with the new season next week, but Epic's metaverse isn't happening right now. I think they simply got beat to the punch by Roblox which has been doing it longer and does it better.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

 

[Ge0force]

Epic once again fined for unfair commercial practices aimed at children:

ACM imposes fine on Epic for unfair commercial practices aimed at children in Fortnite game | ACM.nl

ACM has imposed a fine on game developer Epic Games International for using unfair commercial practices aimed at children in its Fortnite game.

www.acm.nl

But really, Valve is the cancer of the games industry! 🥱

 

[curi0usBystander]

You are not allowed to view this content

 

[STHX]

I mean, Timmy has a pretty big mouth. If KH was permanently exclusive or Epic ported it themselves he would have screamed it in full force
If in the next months KH suddenly appears on Steam it's honestly par the course for Square. Taking years to release something that could have released as soon as the contract expired is no different from what they're doing with FFXVI (and will probably do for Rebirth too). They love giving free exclusivity to their friends while saying in interviews "porting is actually really hard and our game really took advantage of being made for a single platform, promise xoxo"
Nagoshi was the same while at Sega, and everyone can see how as soon as he left Sega became much more multiplatform

 

[madjoki]

Apparently Epic having bug where gamers are losing Dead by Daylight...

[FREE] [Epic Games Store] List of All Weekly Free Games, Every Thursday at 11 AM ET - Page 20

www.steamgifts.com

 

[spindoctor]

Apparently Epic having bug where gamers are losing Dead by Daylight...

Man I read this as 'bug where gamers are losing in Dead by Daylight' and I thought that was hilarious.

I was imagining a situation where the version of the game on EGS has weapons that do 70% less damage for example and EGS players always lose fights because of that.

 

[CommodoreKong]

[Hidden content]

Turns out the deal expired 2 years ago but Square Enix just hasn’t gotten around to the Steam version yet.

 

[Arc]

How Another Crab's Treasure goofed its way to 250k sales in <a month!

Also: a look at PlayStation's results, and a ton of news...

newsletter.gamediscover.co

• Occasionally, Epic Games Store does a ‘free game’ giveaway that’s actually a bunch of DLC for a F2P title, and Firestone Online Idle RPG seems very happy about theirs: “In less than a week, we managed to get more than 100K users coming from Tier 1 countries, and doubling up our CCUs from 5k to more than 11k.”

It's currently the 17th most played game on EGS. The Steam version peaked at ~2700k CCU this weekend but it's also on mobile so that obfuscates things a bit. Anyway that might get some idea about the upper crust for the most played EGS list.

Diabotical being one of the top 100 F2P games is something. That game has been abandoned for years.

Also the Mega Sale starts today. The first free game is supposed to be Dragon Age Inquisition. I assume it'll be the same as every year with the coupon.

 

[Arc]

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/the-epic-mega-sale-2024-starts-now

Looks like the coupon is dead. No boosted rewards either.

 

[STHX]

Well, I guess this is it then. No coupons, no extra sales. It's over

 

[lashman]

Well, I guess this is it then. No coupons, no extra sales. It's over

 

[Arc]

 

[fantomena]

Looking at Epic's first run category, it looks like a garbage bin. Not sure what Epic is thinking about their store anymore. New good looking indie games that seems to sell decently or well comes out every day and every week.

 

[Alexandros]

Looking at Epic's first run category, it looks like a garbage bin. Not sure what Epic is thinking about their store anymore. New good looking indie games that seems to sell decently or well comes out every day and every week.

I too have been thinking about Epic's strategy moving forward. Basically I am wondering if they have some sort of long-term plan or if EGS is just a zombie because Sweeney is too proud to admit failure. I have a few scenarios in mind:

1. Epic does have a long-term plan for EGS. Maybe they are counting on the Fortnite kids eventually moving to traditional gaming and being accustomed to EGS. Maybe they are waiting for Valve to mess up and they want to be there ready to take advantage of any mistake. Or maybe there's another plan in place that we can't think of.

2. Epic is using EGS as a weapon for its legal battles against Apple and Google and they don't care if it ever becomes profitable. Maybe they have a skeleton crew running it and it costs so little to run that they don't mind if it doesn't make a profit.

3. EGS has failed, there is no plan in place but Tim Sweeney is too proud and stubborn to let it go.

3.

 

[curi0usBystander]

About point 1: what we know is that a lot of players of F2P forever/blackhole games moslty play that and it's been 5 years and despite having more games their 3rd party revenue is basically flat.

About point 2: It's worth remembering that they added itch just to prove that you can have a store within a store and not charge commision (it didn't sound as a convincing argument back then).

 

[Ge0force]

The fact that they stopped the coupons is probably a sign that they are giving up. I'm pretty sure lots (if not most) 3rd party sales were driven by these coupons last year (and a few exclusives like Dead Island 2). I can't wait for their year in review.

 

[Stone Ocean]

• The store cut will draw people
• Exclusives will draw people
• Free games will draw people
• Coupons will draw people
• Published games from darling studios will draw people
• Stop doing exclusives
• Stop doing coupons <<We are here>>
• Stop doing free games
• 

 

[DrShrapnel]

I’m confused. Is this their big Summer sale? thought it was normally timed to coincide with Steam’s Summer sale.

If this is it then oof. No coupons out of Tim’s pocket means this sale’s going to be a massive dud.

 

[Arc]

I too have been thinking about Epic's strategy moving forward. Basically I am wondering if they have some sort of long-term plan or if EGS is just a zombie because Sweeney is too proud to admit failure. I have a few scenarios in mind:

1. Epic does have a long-term plan for EGS. Maybe they are counting on the Fortnite kids eventually moving to traditional gaming and being accustomed to EGS. Maybe they are waiting for Valve to mess up and they want to be there ready to take advantage of any mistake. Or maybe there's another plan in place that we can't think of.

2. Epic is using EGS as a weapon for its legal battles against Apple and Google and they don't care if it ever becomes profitable. Maybe they have a skeleton crew running it and it costs so little to run that they don't mind if it doesn't make a profit.

3. EGS has failed, there is no plan in place but Tim Sweeney is too proud and stubborn to let it go.

3.

As ExistentialThought said, 1 is funny because data suggests the Fortnite kids aren't growing up and buying $70 games, they're still playing Fortnite. There is also evidence that the industry as a whole is facing an existential (sorry) crisis with a handful of games hogging up the majority of overall playtime.

Their next big play is the mobile store and I have zero idea how that'll work. My gut feeling is it won't turn out great because Fortnite isn't big enough for the mobile audience to care. Also Microsoft is throwing their hat into the alternate app store ring later this year and Candy Crush is a much bigger deal on mobile than Fortnite.

I’m confused. Is this their big Summer sale? thought it was normally timed to coincide with Steam’s Summer sale.

If this is it then oof. No coupons out of Tim’s pocket means this sale’s going to be a massive dud.

Epic has two major sales: the Mega sale in May/June and the Holiday sale in December. They actually tried to avoid the Steam summer sale. They had been doing coupons for five years during those big sales and this is the first time ever they haven't done a coupon.

Effectively the prices are the same as Steam, barring the 5% rebate, but you can often get cheaper prices via key sites so there is no good reason to buy directly from EGS any more.

 

[STHX]

1. Epic does have a long-term plan for EGS. Maybe they are counting on the Fortnite kids eventually moving to traditional gaming and being accustomed to EGS. Maybe they are waiting for Valve to mess up and they want to be there ready to take advantage of any mistake. Or maybe there's another plan in place that we can't think of.

I'm sure the Fortnite kids will have no issue making a Steam account when it will be time to move on to something else. There hasn't been a single breakthrough hit on PC released on the EGS this year so far (or in past years), and I doubt there will be one next year (or even later)

 

[Rockin' Ranger]

As ExistentialThought said, 1 is funny because data suggests the Fortnite kids aren't growing up and buying $70 games, they're still playing Fortnite. There is also evidence that the industry as a whole is facing an existential (sorry) crisis with a handful of games hogging up the majority of overall playtime.

I'm still amazed that after writing about a study of Steam users where the conclusion was "the people playing games like Dota and CSGO aren't buying other games," Sergi managed to bamboozle Tim with the idea of being about to convert Fortnite players into a huge audience for other games.

 

[ExistentialThought]

I think EGS is in maintenance mode until the mobile store launches and the medium-term future of the platform rests on how well the mobile store performs. Do not be surprised to see another ramp up in spending around when the mobile client releases in an attempt to try a final hail mary.

Even if this fails I do not think Epic will take its ball and go home, but put EGS in full cost save mode until they think the market has changed or something about Epic changes.

I think what is more likely to be canned sooner is their third party publishing after these already signed deals. Though I could see them announce some publishing deals alongside their mobile launch in an effort to entice devs to launch exclusively on their mobile platform.

UEFN content finally seems like their focus now, which really EGS and the mobile store continue to have always been a path to increase margins on UEFN content and make the reality of metaverse profitable.

Of course all of my opinions change if the market changes like the interest rates drop, gaming shrinks, Fortnite gets dethroned, Fortnite grows, etc.

 

[CommodoreKong]

I think EGS is in maintenance mode until the mobile store launches and the medium-term future of the platform rests on how well the mobile store performs. Do not be surprised to see another ramp up in spending around when the mobile client releases in an attempt to try a final hail mary.

Even if this fails I do not think Epic will take its ball and go home, but put EGS in full cost save mode until they think the market has changed or something about Epic changes.

I think what is more likely to be canned sooner is their third party publishing after these already signed deals. Though I could see them announce some publishing deals alongside their mobile launch in an effort to entice devs to launch exclusively on their mobile platform.

UEFN content finally seems like their focus now, which really EGS and the mobile store continue to have always been a path to increase margins on UEFN content and make the reality of metaverse profitable.

Of course all of my opinions change if the market changes like the interest rates drop, gaming shrinks, Fortnite gets dethroned, Fortnite grows, etc.

Oh yeah I imagine the majority of effort right now is on the mobile side of things, and we'll see a big push when the IOS store is ready to go. I doubt the PC store will see much of a push during this launch as they'll probably want to focus as much of their development and promotional/marketing dollars on mobile.

 

[Parsnip]

Their mobile effort will see about as much success as any alternate store has in the Android land. Despite being huge Samsung has managed to do jackshit with their store. Of course Google did everything they could, legal or otherwise, in order to keep everyone on the Google play store, but at this point only the end result matters.
Despite all the recent EU rulings and whatever else, it would be naive to think that Apple will not do everything they can to hamper all the alternative store stuff too, again legally or otherwise.
Plus, globally speaking Apple mobile devices are something like 25-30% of the entire mobile market, even if Epic somehow manages to make the store a hit, it's hard to see it being important in the grand scheme of things.
And of course, Fortnite was never that big on iOS in the first place, that's not going to change.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

For me, a large reason why I prefer Google's Play Store is because it runs well, easy to navigate, and looks good compared to other stores that I use to try out (like Amazon's app store).

 

[Arc]

Bamco games are on EGS with Klonoa and We Love Katamari (not available in the US right now though). Not a major surprise they're dipping their toes into EGS as the Little Nightmare games have been on their backend for years.

 

[STHX]

Guess the check finally arrived at Bamco's
Only Capcom's left, but does it matter? It's not like there will ever be exclusives from them considering all the numbers they do on Steam

 

[Mor]

Guess the check finally arrived at Bamco's
Only Capcom's left, but does it matter? It's not like there will ever be exclusives from them considering all the numbers they do on Steam

It's just expansion, no check in place for any weird exclusivity.

 

[STHX]

It's just expansion, no check in place for any weird exclusivity.

Oh, I forgot how it was called, but I was referring to the whole "bring 3 of your past games on the EGS and you get 100% of revenue for a few months" which was announced together with First Run

 

[ExistentialThought]

Feels almost weird to launch on there now, I wonder if it will be more a couple of freebies to start or if it will be smaller games. I highly doubt anything short of Elden Ring moving the needle much on EGS this late in the game. Also I wonder if like STHX says, these will be considered First Run/Backlog titles. The whole add your backlog and get 100% was specifically meant to target a few publishers.

 

[fantomena]

Games get's added to more storefronts is more choices. Isn't that what we should want? So good on Bandai for doing that despite I don't see the games selling well there at all.

 

[Ge0force]

Games get's added to more storefronts is more choices. Isn't that what we should want?

Yes, at least for storefronts that are actually trying to compete instead of disrupting existing storefronts. EGS has literally zero reasons to exist now the coupons are being fased out.

 

[xxr]

Games get's added to more storefronts is more choices. Isn't that what we should want?

In the case of GOG, Itch and stores that sell keys, absolutely. But releasing on Epic is honestly a liability due to crossplay concerns and Epic Online Services. I've had issues with every single game that has implemented Epic Online Services so far, which is dumb since I shouldn't be affected since I'm playing on Steam with other Steam players. You could argue it's also the developer's responsibility, and you'd be right, but at this point it's so much easier to just skip the store and focus on real alternatives instead. There's no reason to publish on a dead store anyway, it's not like you're reaching a new audience.

 

[Arc]

The next free game is Chivalry 2. Every game so far this Mega Sale has been on Game Pass or PS+.

BTW Mor, I think Epic paid Ubi for AC Shadows exclusivity. It still doesn't have the First Run tag and all of Ubi's promo material mentions EGS while they don't mention it for Avatar or Star Wars. Also I read an old interview where Epic said they weren't done with exclusives, but just being more targeted towards big games.

Granted that's speculation on my part, but it might change how late the Steam release is if I'm correct.

In the case of GOG, Itch and stores that sell keys, absolutely. But releasing on Epic is honestly a liability due to crossplay concerns and Epic Online Services. I've had issues with every single game that has implemented Epic Online Services so far, which is dumb since I shouldn't be affected since I'm playing on Steam with other Steam players. You could argue it's also the developer's responsibility, and you'd be right, but at this point it's so much easier to just skip the store and focus on real alternatives instead. There's no reason to publish on a dead store anyway, it's not like you're reaching a new audience.

EOS is terrible. I guarantee you it'll go down during the next Fortnite event in December and render hundreds of games useless. The worst part is I think Steamworks has cross-platform play just like EOS, but Valve's toolset isn't as easy to use as Epic's so most devs just default to EOS. I've been wanting Valve to address this for years but they simply don't appear to be interested.

 

[Mor]

BTW Mor, I think Epic paid Ubi for AC Shadows exclusivity. It still doesn't have the First Run tag and all of Ubi's promo material mentions EGS while they don't mention it for Avatar or Star Wars. Also I read an old interview where Epic said they weren't done with exclusives, but just being more targeted towards big games.

Nah, just wait a bit, same happened with Outlaws, for some reason the tag appears after quite some time, I think it's still a manual process or something because I remember thinking the same when Star Wars opened the store page haha

So yeah, just wait a bit

 

[fantomena]

Played a few min of the 33 Immortals closed beta (next game from Spiritfarer devs).

 

[curi0usBystander]

Google objects to Epic's proposed changes to Play Store policy

Google has filed its objections against Epic Games' recent call for the courts to enforce a variety of changes to polic…

www.gamesindustry.biz

In case someone wants to read google response

Judge orders Google to calculate the costs of Epic’s biggest Play Store demand

Google has a month to figure out the cost of compliance.

www.theverge.com

 

[Arc]

From lurking around, it appears the last season was kind of a dud due to increased grinding with the battle pass and nerfing EXP in BR mode to funnel people to the METAVERSE.

Judge orders Google to calculate the costs of Epic’s biggest Play Store demand

Google has a month to figure out the cost of compliance.

www.theverge.com

Forcing Google to allow Epic access to everything on the Play Store is insane. The fact the judge is entertaining it stuns me.

 

[Knurek]

Judge orders Google to calculate the costs of Epic’s biggest Play Store demand

Google has a month to figure out the cost of compliance.

www.theverge.com