Well, I was planning to do this post in ten days given that it was when the first wave was announced and the spreadsheet was created, for those wondering this is a retrospective of how the EGS has been doing in both 2019 and 2020 and compare the performance between both years, why didn't I post this in 2019? because there was no A point to compare with, so this is the first analysis I will make.
Before we start I want to say a few things.
First of all, this is a completely not official piece of data, my spreadsheet is a manual process I have been doing week after week since December 2018, as so, it might lack some information or some numbers might not be entirely complete, for example, I know there are 2 free giveaway games that are not represented but I couldn't find which ones were those.
Second thing, at a personal level I don't like EGS, that's not news but data is above my own biases, this is a completely objective analysis of the situation with numbers, not opinions, I don't care if you use the EGS, Steam, GOG or Stadia, please, do enjoy whatever platform you use and let people enjoy gaming the way they want.
Third thing, this was something I said back in November and I want to see if I was more or less correct, you will be the one who decides how correct or mistaken I was.
Fourth and last thing, this was announced just right now so I won't be able to modify the numbers but still, my bet is that they will announce around 8 games, 6 news and 2 already known (Hitman 3 most likely one of them) same as point 3, you will be the one who decides if I was wrong or right, ok?
following the same pattern that followed at the E3, gamescom and spring reel.
Now that being said, LET'S GET THIS ANALYSIS STARTED!!!!
Galyokin shared this tweet about the status of the store this year and in addition to the past year's data.
He says that they started with only 2 games, while technically true (Fortnite and another 1P games I can't remember) until December 18th, 2018, when the first wave was announced, the store itself started running in late December with 6 games released and 12 announced but still not available as you can see here (this is the first version of the spreadsheet dated as January 12, 2019; 24 games, not even a freebie yet)
And he also says that right now the store has about 400 games, which is not entirely false but the number is around 350 games (344 games in my document but some are not listed) so I'm not going to say it's a lie, just a potential missed data point from my part as I might have missed some things.
The actual state of the games are this:
This way things might not be that cool, right? well, let's get some numbers.
2019:
87 non-exclusive games
70 timed exclusives
26 unknown games
13 timed-unknown games
186 games in total
2020:
208 non-exclusive games
93 timed exclusives
38 unknown games
14 timed-unknown games
344 games in total
135 (all kinds of) exclusive games up to this day, 45 already released on Steam or...
32,6% of all exclusives (including without dates and unknown) already released on Steam and/or GOG
55,7% of timed exclusives with dates already released on Steam and/or GOG
not bad, right?
As you can see the numbers would indicate that in 2019,
109 exclusivity deals were signed/announced, while in 2020 only
36 exclusivity deals were signed/announced up to this day.
However, the biggest change has been the more open approach of the store as the number that changes the most is the Non-exclusive entries, from 87 up to 208, which is really great to see, however, why did this number get such an increase? well, let's remember that freebies are still a thing, in 2019, until mid-year it was 1 freebie/2 weeks and then it switched to 2 freebies/2 weeks but a third change happened at the very end of the year (IIRC about October) that was 2 freebies/each week, this change has been stayed like that all the way until the end of 2020 (and there is no indication that this will change)
Why so? probably because the biggest number of users that interact with the store each week are the ones that redeem those games as we have seen in multiple occasions, also, it's the only way of engagement within the social media each week, as there isn't a constant flow of games entering nor a flow of news, the freebies are the only way to stay afloat in terms of relevance each week against other competitors.
Not only that but at the same time this strategy has been used in multiple occasions (the biggest one was GTA V and Total War Troy) as it's an easy number to sell to the media (remember the millions?) so yeah, this is one of the very few data points we have available to study the tendencies (and probably the main reason, alongside fortnite, of why they use users and not customers, as customers are only those who buy games on the store itself and probably the numbers are not the ones they expected, once again, MAYBE)
So, what's the balance here?
2020 has been a much slower year for the EGS compared to 2019, the number of deals announced has been highly reduced, their new strategy is to open the store more and, potentially, publish non-announced games (although this doesn't mean specifically EGS exclusive forever, this is something we must keep into consideration because there's still a lot to know about this)
The number of timed exclusives AAA has been much lower too and it has been linked to the free giveaways much more than expected, which could mean a potential way of engagement with the media, social media and PR announcements.
2021 might be different but I think the most likely approach here will be from the bigger teams a multi-store approach and from some known indies, maybe, accept the deal and then 12 months later release elsewhere.
now
AS A PERSONAL OPINION I think during the last few months (pretty much 2020 as a whole) I think the EGS has been kind of the "not secured products" store, let me explain myself, most of the deals have been for two kind of products, the first one targeted AAA/AA games that pretty much had a known name or already had certain expectations from the players (The Outer World, Borderlands, Control, etc...) and the second group is about those games that doesn't have any kind of potential expectations/more experimental and have behind them not so wealthy teams/known publishers like Devolver or Nacon.
The first team was kind of a big deal in 2019 but decreased in 2020, however the second one was the predominant group in 2020 making this store an option for those teams who are not entirely sure about the reception of the products to get a day 1 pay-check for a timed exclusivity (like a safe-guard) to get revenue from day 1 and then having time to check if the game works or not for when it releases in a different store.
And I think that's about it, sorry for all this text-wall, but I wanted to make this analysis, your interaction will be more than welcome and if you want to say something, ask something or just correct me somewhere, I will be more than glad answering you all, if anything I really hope you liked this analysis and probably will happen again in 2021, we will see if we are still alive haha.
