News Epic Games Store

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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"When Steam does it then it's bad," is basically the mantra coming from senior Epic staff these days. They don't even think about the hipocrisy of what they're saying, knowing they'll do exactly the same thing in the future. Just Steam Bad.
 

Bonfires Down

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Nov 18, 2019
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At least when they add achievements and mods that’s enough for me to not feel like the client is particularly lacking. It’s not Steam but I’m happy they are adding mod support unlike everyone but Valve.
 

gabbo

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Dec 22, 2018
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At least when they add achievements and mods that’s enough for me to not feel like the client is particularly lacking. It’s not Steam but I’m happy they are adding mod support unlike everyone but Valve.
When/if they do add QoL features for users, (like achievements and mods) there is always a tweet from roughly a year before or more showcasing some serious hypocrisy about why that consumer focused feature is bad and Steam having it is hurting devs/the industry.

Does the store have any unique features that benefit customers at this point or is it all talking out of two sides of their mouth with basic feature set?
 
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Joe Spangle

Playing....
Apr 17, 2019
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I thought that the reason they could offer Devs a 88% cut was that the client would be bare bones as all those 'features' that the Steam tax pays for aren't cheap. If the eggs client starts getting more features will the % cut stay the same?

I cant wait to start calling it the Timmy tax.
 

Acidote

Omega Yul
Jun 16, 2019
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If they ever reach feature parity with Steam, it's either increasing the % cut or eating the costs and pray to always have their own microtransaction behemoth to pay them until they find a way to reduce those costs. And a store can't be a money sink forever, there's no point.
 

LEANIJA

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May 5, 2019
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Tim has said Steam could operate with a 12% cut, and I assume he doesnt know Valves numbers and didnt consider Steam keys nor Steam cash, transaction fees and all the other stuff that Steam does (I assume there is a better writedown what Valve actually does, but nobody knows their numbers except Valve themselves, obviously).
So maybe he thinks he can do it, but will probably need to face reality at some point.
 

Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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I could see Tim offer store features on a case-by-case basis, and the cut would be personalized based on the boxes ticked by the devs.

You want achievements? 13% cut.
You want workshop? 20% cut.
You want feature parity with Steam? 30% cut.
 

Acidote

Omega Yul
Jun 16, 2019
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I could see Tim offer store features on a case-by-case basis, and the cut would be personalized based on the boxes ticked by the devs.

You want achievements? 13% cut.
You want workshop? 20% cut.
You want feature parity with Steam? 30% cut.
But doesn't translate directly into the costs. You can downsize on server costs or bandwidth capacity, but there are running (infrastructural) costs you can't cut down if you want to offer the higher tiers.
 

Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
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I could see Tim offer store features on a case-by-case basis, and the cut would be personalized based on the boxes ticked by the devs.

You want achievements? 13% cut.
You want workshop? 20% cut.
You want feature parity with Steam? 30% cut.
What good is 30% of zero?

So the EGS version of wishlist is to put the game on the list, and then ... do they remind you periodically that it's not on sale? Do they not want me to lose track of their vast catalog? It could be useful if I could set it to remind me that a game is hitting its one year anniversary so that I don't forget to buy it.... What? Yes, of COURSE on EGS! Why wouldn't I?
 
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Alexandros

Every game should be turn based
Nov 4, 2018
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I could see Tim offer store features on a case-by-case basis, and the cut would be personalized based on the boxes ticked by the devs.

You want achievements? 13% cut.
You want workshop? 20% cut.
You want feature parity with Steam? 30% cut.
Most developers would choose 12% with minimal features because fuck customers.
 

gabbo

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Dec 22, 2018
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Tim has said Steam could operate with a 12% cut, and I assume he doesnt know Valves numbers and didnt consider Steam keys nor Steam cash, transaction fees and all the other stuff that Steam does (I assume there is a better writedown what Valve actually does, but nobody knows their numbers except Valve themselves, obviously).
So maybe he thinks he can do it, but will probably need to face reality at some point.
Tim knows or at least has a very good understanding of the economics behind Steam and what that cut entails.

He's being intentionally misleading about the various things that 30% covers - aka he's all but lying. He's trying to make it look like any reason given for that 30% is just an excuse to gouge devs, so that over time he can normalize that negative view (hence him calling it a tax all the time) and use his publicly admitted unsustainable 12% as a means to make it look worse and his cut better.

Never believe that Tim and Epic entered into digital distribution without knowing exactly the kind of market forces he was dealing with, otherwise he is the worst ceo of a major corporation.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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Yeah, I remember some dev went like "you know what, I actually prefer the sleek clean look of the EGS"
I mean, I guess a blank white wall can also have its appeal to some people. ;)
I'd also prefer a box with a BluRay, a simple installation process without DRM and no of launcher.
If they want to make it simple, make it that way.
 
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eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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The Epic store is clearly almost totally based on Sergey's flawed analysis and assumptions of the steam store.
Not really. Part of his analysis was the importance of regional pricing. The store launched without regional pricing.
Part of his analysis was that f2p players are not a good base to create a store. The store is mainly based on Fortnite players.

I think it is a combination of various factors:
Sergey is really just PR and is part of the indie approach due to how good he is viewed in most angles.
An approach from Epic being as cheap as possible in maintaining / improving the store (as it is part of the 12%, while the customer acquisition is not considered in there).
Believing that the customer doesnt really care about extra added value nowadays.
Believing that we would be seeing the era of big players moving away trying to create their own individual platforms (where they could try and sell also "bridges" with cross play) instead of an era of re-open borders.

The last one is what I believe hurts them the most. Sergey has been romping for years about how all the big players were going to move away from Steam and in the end, the only one that did for now is... Ubisoft (with Fortnite money to back the moving away) and GAAS games for Activision (basically COD). In the end, EA and MS (and I guess now Sony in part?) viewing sales on Steam as an extra to increase their outreach on PC and the ability to sell subscriptions there (for EA now) proved that the 30% was not the "wall" it seemed before.

But in general, I think the main problem of EGS was a flawed mechanic of believing they could "suffocate" Steam out of big / influential games for months at a time forcing people to use their service. Even without EA and MS coming back, it wouldnt have worked.
Most developers would choose 12% with minimal features because fuck customers.
Also main reason why i dont want a "feature per cut" model.
 

LEANIJA

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May 5, 2019
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I'd also prefer a box with a BluRay, a simple installation process without DRM and no of launcher.
If they want to make it simple, make it that way.
Eh, to be honest, I am glad to have moved away from discs. I mentioned this before, but when I discovered I could use my CD key from Dragon Age Inquistion in the EA Download Manager (now Origin), I jumped on that instantly, meaning I never had to use the disc again. There are downsides to digital distribution of any media, sure; and definite benefits to having physical media, but I just prefer the former for games (and films, and to some extent for music and books, too).

Sergey is really just PR and is part of the indie approach due to how good he is viewed in most angles.
Hm, when they first announced the EGS, Sergey went public saying "now I can reveal what I've been working on for the past few months". He mustve been more integral to the whole thing. And probably lost influence over time as the EGS introduced sales and other things they have publicly disparaged before.
 

eonden

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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Hm, when they first announced the EGS, Sergey went public saying "now I can reveal what I've been working on for the past few months". He mustve been more integral to the whole thing. And probably lost influence over time as the EGS introduced sales and other things they have publicly disparaged before.
Nah, he was part of PR and talking with Indies and big companies (part of the reason of Ubisoft was because he realyl is a huge Ubi fanboy). As I said, there are core problems on EGS at launch he had previously analyzed, so either he wasnt part of the core group leader, or he is even worse at analyzing things than I thought.
 
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LEANIJA

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Nah, he was part of PR and talking with Indies and big companies (part of the reason of Ubisoft was because he realyl is a huge Ubi fanboy). As I said, there are core problems on EGS at launch he had previously analyzed, so either he wasnt part of the core group leader, or he is even worse at analyzing things than I thought.
I think it's the latter :p
Some people have access to a lot of data and immediately think they are a statistics wizard.
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Nah, he was part of PR and talking with Indies and big companies (part of the reason of Ubisoft was because he realyl is a huge Ubi fanboy). As I said, there are core problems on EGS at launch he had previously analyzed, so either he wasnt part of the core group leader, or he is even worse at analyzing things than I thought.
I'd like to think that Sergey had some concerns, but Timmy ignored/waved them away and thought he knew better.
 
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Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
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Ubisoft and Epic are still BFF's it seems. Ubi's community manager confirmed on Reddit that there are no plans to bring their games back to Steam. I'm really curious this is because of contractual reasons, or because it actually benefits Ubi. Their games are constantly in Epic's best selling list, although that probably doesn't mean much.
 
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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Ubisoft and Epic are still BFF's it seems. Ubi's community manager confirmed on Reddit that there are no plans to bring their games back to Steam. I'm really curious this is because of contractual reasons, or because it actually benefits Ubi. Their games are constantly in Epic's best selling list, although that probably doesn't mean much.
I have no idea if Epics best seller list are a bunch of lies or not. Shenmue 3 sold terrible everywhere on PS4, but was on first place on EGS top seller list for 2 weeks after release. So either the list is a lie, Shenmue 3 sold fantastic on EGS meaning the other titles sold well or Shenmue 3 sold terrible and the other titles even worse.

The only thing that is known is that the list is updates once a week.
 

Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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Ubisoft and Epic are still BFF's it seems. Ubi's community manager confirmed on Reddit that there are no plans to bring their games back to Steam. I'm really curious this is because of contractual reasons, or because it actually benefits Ubi. Their games are constantly in Epic's best selling list, although that probably doesn't mean much.
They'll be back.
Community managers can be PR mouth pieces.
Just remember who came back last year. Ubi can be friends with EGS all they want, they're still gonna sell their GaaS nonsense for $5 :V
 

gabbo

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Dec 22, 2018
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Ubisoft and Epic are still BFF's it seems. Ubi's community manager confirmed on Reddit that there are no plans to bring their games back to Steam. I'm really curious this is because of contractual reasons, or because it actually benefits Ubi. Their games are constantly in Epic's best selling list, although that probably doesn't mean much.
If their CEO has to publicly eat crow again because their major releases sell terribly, that EGS money won't mean anything. Weak sales means weak shares. Weak shares means trouble for the heads of Ubisoft. And the company tends to invite hostile takeover attempts every other year, so a few more quarters like their last one and the 3:15 to majoritystakeville will be pulling in on time.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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If their CEO has to publicly eat crow again because their major releases sell terribly, that EGS money won't mean anything. Weak sales means weak shares. Weak shares means trouble for the heads of Ubisoft. And the company tends to invite hostile takeover attempts every other year, so a few more quarters like their last one and the 3:15 to majoritystakeville will be pulling in on time.
For the time being they are chalking up poor-selling games to their quality. I don't necessarily argue with this assessment because Ubisoft tends to make one game every 3-5 years, slapping a new skin on top of it and selling it for $60 apiece several times in the year. There are a few exceptions to that, but on the whole their games tend to go down very similar design trends, repeated until players begin to spot it and get bored of it. They have said that they're going to have an internal shakeup to get the creative juices flowing again, but that excuse can only be trotted out once.

If they start releasing refreshed games that still sell poorly then investors will begin to ask questions about their business strategy.
 

Rosenkrantz

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Ubisoft community manager can say whatever the hell they want, but the reality is Division 2's expansion got a massive discount barely a week after its release, that's not healthy no matter how you want to slice it. Would Steam be a cure, I doubt it, Ubi's problems are obviously structural in nature, however, nobody can argue that Steam's userbase is orders of magnitude bigger than that of Epic.
 

beep boop

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Dec 6, 2018
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It seems like the expansion is also kind of a hit and a miss? At least for a more casual Division player like myself. Repetitive by design, battle pass, HP bloat, not much unique content given it's sold at half of the game's launch price, etc. Like, I was looking at the $20 price tag yesterday and thought I'd be on board for sure, but the more I started reading about what's there, the less appealing it became even at that discount.

I feel like The Division has a real identity crisis that will never be fully solved unless studio finally decides whether it wants it to be a proper offline ARPG or goes full MMO(-lite) like Destiny. It seems like it's trying to cater to both audiences and just not really nailing it for either. It's got all the grind and HP bloat of an MMO packaged in what is largely a singleplayer experience, even though the end-game stuff doesn't scale down for one player. Even the monolithic Monster Hunter series realized content should scale down. So you play 90% of the game on your own, but then you've gotta team up with others to get the good loot. It doesn't make much sense.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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41k currently playing BL3 on Steam plus:

250k+ is a strong sign imo. I know some of you will say that 2k won, because they managed to get Epic's money, sell on EGS and sell on Steam.
I think though, that this case demonstrates that players will skip games if they aren't being released openly. It could be an important sign to publishers to not go with Epic, especially not without extra cash flow from Tim.
And those epic cash injections will eventually stop.
 

fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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This explains why Epic went after Zombie Army 4 and State of Decay 2 as well. But if Epic's top selling list is correct, Zombie Army 4 was a huge flop on pc. It never did better than #9.
I checked on Zombie Army 4s Reddit and the ERA thread about the game (no OT, was just a thread the game was discussed), the multiplayer on PC was dead hours after the game releases.

Also considering State of Decay 2 is available on game pass and Steam, I don't see it selling well on EGS unless MS releases numbers showing it did well.
 
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