Epic losing massive amounts of money in the battle vs Steam

30% is nothing when Publishers used to take it all, often including ownership of the IP, and maybe give the devs crumbs if they made their sales numbers inside a certain time frame. And once your game was off the shelf for the next new thing, it was pretty much gone forever unless it was actually popular. Steam changed that.
EGS does not take 30% because they are not in a position to take 30%. It's not because they don't want to. It's because their service is not worth that 30%. Most devs seem to believe Steam is, unless EGS actually pays them to think otherwise.

"So, you are saying you are going to give us X millions to give you a timed exclusive, regardless of actual sales, and then you get 15% of sales once we reach sales goals. And next year we can launch on GOG, Steam, Origin, Etc. as well?"
"Where do I sign?"

I don't blame anyone involved, EGS wants to be king, and the devs want a sure payday, but I don't trust EGS and Tencent with my library or my CC info.
Between Internet costs and data backups and the mass amounts of network security required 30% is nothing. If a developer went to do this on their own their AWS fees alone would probably come close to that let alone the staff needed to maintain and secure the services you are providing.
I’m not against what Epic is saying they want, my only issue is I don’t trust that their words match their intentions. And unless some master body gets formed that maintains some huge database of logins and hosts the files that all the developers and publishers chip into maintaining I just don’t see how it would work.
Take a riff on the Kronos group, maybe call it the Hades Group because maintaining this single library system sounds like literal hell to me.
 
Less talk about origin these days. I see a lot of EA games on steam now
They figured out it's better to be on as many different store fronts as possible. Especially when you can shoe horn an Origin account in with the deal. They still require Origin for most of their titles, so they are getting some people that don't want Origin by selling on Steam then requiring an Origin account anyway.
 
As someone else pointed out very wisely: By giving out free games, you don't attract people who want to spend lots of money on games, you attract freeloaders
I don't consider myself a freeloader normally, but I used Epic for those free games, and never logged in outside of that. Eventually I stopped even caring about the free games. I think it worth the money to pay for those same games on Steam and keep everything in one place.
 
As someone else pointed out very wisely: By giving out free games, you don't attract people who want to spend lots of money on games, you attract freeloaders
Bingo, only reason i have EPIC installed is for the free games, i have spent plenty on Steam and have some Origin games.
 
Bingo, only reason i have EPIC installed is for the free games, i have spent plenty on Steam and have some Origin games.
I got MW5: Mercs because I didn’t want to wait the year after a crapload of deliberation I don’t regret it, but I don’t think I would do it again.
 
Firstly, you get good games. Make exclusive games that are good, not buy temporary rights to mediocre games. Also, Epic is full of mediocre games. Control is nice but the game was boring. More about graphics and physics than gameplay. What was your favorite part of Control? The endless swarm of enemies in room you forget, or the endless swarm of enemies in other room you forget? Borderlands 3 was good but not as good as Borderlands 2. Which might I add that Borderlands 2 is available on Linux, which is not supported by Epic. Nobody liked it when Epic bought Rocket League and took away Linux support.

As of right now these are the top games on Steam. Notice all the games in Blue are made by Valve in some way.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Dota 2

PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
Apex Legends
Team Fortress 2
Grand Theft Auto V
Valheim
Source SDK Base 2013 Multiplayer <-- Probably Gmod
Rust
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

Here are the top 10 games played on Epic.
Fortnite
Rocket League

GTAV
Jurassic World Evolution
Stranded Deep
Torchlight II
Rogue Company
Metro 2033
My Time at Portia
Sid Meier's Civilization VI

See the problem here? For Epic it's basically just Fortnite and Rocket League with GTAV which is always popular no matter what. Other than Metro 2033, I don't recognize the other games. Civilization VI is on Steam but not the top 10, but is available on Linux. Torchlight II and Stranded Deep are on Linux as well. Valve has more popular games that they made which are over 10 years old. Why would anyone spend money on a platform that tries to take away games from other platforms instead of create them?
 
30% is nothing when Publishers used to take it all, often including ownership of the IP, and maybe give the devs crumbs if they made their sales numbers inside a certain time frame.

That is how it is now with Steam/whatever. Unless you don't have a publisher and self publish. But those games are few and far between. Essentially you take 30% off the full price, than the publisher takes their cut, then the developers get what is left.
 
That is how it is now with Steam/whatever. Unless you don't have a publisher and self publish. But those games are few and far between. Essentially you take 30% off the full price, than the publisher takes their cut, then the developers get what is left.
In the old days developers had to shop fully developed games to publishers and barely see anything in return, now they only partner with publishers if the publisher foots most of bill for development which used to be very rare. There are a ton of smaller devs that get 70%+(30% is the absolute most that Valve takes) of sales vs 50% to retail off the top and then most of the rest to the publisher that did nothing but distribute the game, maybe advertise it some, and if they're really lucky help some with localization.
 
All they have to do is properly finish and develop Unreal Tournament, and give it the same kind of love that Fortnite has gotten, along with the best graphics of any game in the world (HINT: re-write the entire game and use Unreal Engine 5 as a showcase for the new technology) and just sit back and watch the money flow.

Unreal used to be a showcase of next gen tech, much like the id tech engines were. They need to go back to that. A mod friendly game with a "tournament spec" specification for official maps and modes for esports, with full mod and dedicated server support for customs, and a robust anti hacking system would be "Shut up and Take My Money."
UT2005 got clobbered by a combination of CS + COD + TF2. They haven't been able too get people interested in anything to replace it for a decade.

Epic wasted a decade of Unreal Engine d licenses funding failure-after-failure, until they finally got lucky with Fortnite Battle Royale .

Since it's pretty clear that Epic sucks at making anything except ripoffs, they have handed the reins to paid exclusives! Even their console games hsave been suffering from sequelitis
 
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They are trying to compete against the biggest, and arguably best, with an inferior platform.
It's their tactics that's the problem. Arguably, Uplay, Origin, GOG, are all inferior platforms to Steam, yet they don't incite the same kind of resentment from most people as EGS does, because they never relied on bribes and exclusives, they mostly rely on first party games, and no DRM in case of GOG. Maybe instead of throwing around cash like a coked up junkie Tim should invest in first party exclusives that people are interested in. Valve is always accused of not being able to count to three, well has anyone seen Unreal 3, yet?
 
Maybe instead of throwing around cash like a coked up junkie Tim should invest in first party exclusives that people are interested in.

But then everyone will complain about Epic buying up talent/studios. Even on this forum people were upset when they bought up a few studios including the Rocket League studio.

Valve is always accused of not being able to count to three, well has anyone seen Unreal 3, yet?

Well there is Unreal Tournament 3. It isn't Unreal, but they can count to 3. And I suppose Valve can. They have released four Counter Strike games. Though I suppose they only really did 2 or 2.5 at best,. Like almost everything Valve has ever done, they bought Counter Strike. And then farmed Global Offense out to a 3rd party. That sums up practically all of Valve's games except HL1, HL2, Ep1-2, HL Alyx, TF2 and that card game flop. Their whole history is buying up cool IPs/ideas and putting them behind Steam exclusivity. The irony.
 
But then everyone will complain about Epic buying up talent/studios. Even on this forum people were upset when they bought up a few studios including the Rocket League studio.
Well, longtime customers of a popular and established game getting screwed over was bound to make some waves, seeing as not only was the game de-listed from Steam, but workshop support atrophied, Linux and MacOS versions outright abandoned, and this after the dev promised "don't worry nothing will change after the move to Epic!" Considering Tim's flippant attitude about Linux in general, not surprising:

1618218441701.png

So "we've gotta fight for our freedomz except fuck linux because I can't monetize that quickly". But the thing to consider here isn't even about Linux, but an overall pattern of behavior with this guy. Seriously, scroll through his twitter history some time- he can be as toxic, childish and antagonistic as a typical youtube commenter.
 
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Oh yes! You can download games from Steam to your computer using "Back up Game Files".
Nice goalpost moving! You said to download and install them you didn't need the steam client while with epic you do. That is patently false. You're now deflecting with "backing games up". So no it's still "oh noes!"
 
That sums up practically all of Valve's games except HL1, HL2, Ep1-2, HL Alyx, TF2 and that card game flop. Their whole history is buying up cool IPs/ideas and putting them behind Steam exclusivity. The irony.

I think it's only ironic if you ignore nuance, because there's a drastic difference in mindset and philosophies of the two companies. Buying into, buying out, or otherwise investing in a game or studio in the early stages of development to get it over the finish line - and then making it exclusive to your store as the reward for that financial risk - is a far cry from just seeing what's already out and popular on another store - or Top-Wishlisted - and then asking the publisher how much money it'll take to remove the game from that store. The latter is bad faith and generally considered shitty.

Epic is like the Tonya Harding of videogame companies, believing the way to get ahead is sabotaging the competition instead of building a compelling service that creates value for gamers; the latter would take a hell of a lot longer but would also be more enduring when the Fortnite gravy train ends.
 
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But then everyone will complain about Epic buying up talent/studios. Even on this forum people were upset when they bought up a few studios including the Rocket League studio.
Jeez, you are defending them using their brutish tactics that got them the ire in the first place.

What does buying a studio then removing their already released game from the competing platform has to do with developing in-house first party exclusives? Does epic not have developers? Is the unreal engine magically conjured? Can they not post job listings for upcoming projects like any respectable game developer?
 
Jeez, you are defending them using their brutish tactics that got them the ire in the first place.

What does buying a studio then removing their already released game from the competing platform has to do with developing in-house first party exclusives? Does epic not have developers? Is the unreal engine magically conjured? Can they not post job listings for upcoming projects like any respectable game developer?

They made Rocket League free I'm SO HURT AS A CONSUMER WAHWAHWAH
 
They are trying to compete against the biggest, and arguably best, with an inferior platform. Throwing money at it to grow market share was a given. It will likely work out in the end. Lucky for them they had Fortnite. Otherwise they never would have had the cash to even try.
I only even have an Epic account for free games, and have zero intention of ever buying from them, but if their existence helps keep Valve on their toes, I am all for it.
Valve has literally done nothing in response to Epic's presence in the marketplace so far.
It does not matter to me how much they've spent on exclusives or freebies.
I'm happy that someone has finally come along to challenge the 30% rape and defacto monopoly that is Steam.
30% is the standard on nearly all digital storefronts.
Exactly all the gamers buying into the 30% !!!! WTF Bs marketing from Epic... forget what game publishing was before Steam. Valve got big enough off a couple hits to start calling some of their own shots... and what they did was find away to free smaller developers from the shackles of a publisher. Games developed by one or two people... who can reach millions of potential customers is possible today thanks to steam. No small developer is going to build a 20GB unreal engine game and distribute it themselves the Bandwidth alone would cost them a lot more then 30 points never mind marketing and all the other community stuff steam offers.

30% is a steal for what Valve offers smaller developers. Even for the bigger developers 30% to not have to worry about all the server issues of pushing modern games is a good deal. Obviously everyone would rather pay 15%... but 15 years ago a smallish developers of less then 100 employees was probably dealing with a larger publisher that was taking a hell of a lot more then 30%. Perhaps over a sales target the developer got rich... but if the game didn't make big money a lot of those small developers got damn near nothing. This is part of the reason it used to be some what easy for the Sony Microsoft EAs of the world to swoop in and buy developers that had hit games for next to nothing.

Steam offered a lot of smaller developers a lot of freedom for 30% no matter if they sold a couple thousand copies or a million.
Exactly. Before Steam it looked like this:
1618239959584.png


With Steam it looks like this:
1618239996324.png


One thing nobody talks about on the consumer side is that Steam eats the transaction fees on purchases in that 30% while Epic does not.
 
Valve has literally done nothing in response to Epic's presence in the marketplace so far.

30% is the standard on nearly all digital storefronts.

Exactly. Before Steam it looked like this:
View attachment 347236

With Steam it looks like this:
View attachment 347237

One thing nobody talks about on the consumer side is that Steam eats the transaction fees on purchases in that 30% while Epic does not.
That’s actually really interesting info about transaction fees.
 
Nice goalpost moving! You said to download and install them you didn't need the steam client while with epic you do. That is patently false. You're now deflecting with "backing games up". So no it's still "oh noes!"
What goalposts? I'm telling you how it is.

Epic doesn't allow you to play games, that you purchased without using the Epic store application. Steam allows you to download the game files to your computer and play them without using Steam, same with GOG.

Its great for backing up games in case of a network outage or just to create a physical media collection.
 
I got MW5: Mercs because I didn’t want to wait the year after a crapload of deliberation I don’t regret it, but I don’t think I would do it again.

I came close to jumping in EGS just to get Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. But there was nothing else on the EGS platform I was remotely interested in. So I waited a year, and RGO made it on Steam in Sept 2020. And it turned out the was game was mostly meh. It wasn't the Space Sim mecca it was marketed to be- even for old school WC Privateer and Freelancer fans.

How many of these EGS exclusives turned out to be lukewarm titles?
 
I came close to jumping in EGS just to get Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. But there was nothing else on the EGS platform I was remotely interested in. So I waited a year, and RGO made it on Steam in Sept 2020. And it turned out the was game was mostly meh. It wasn't the Space Sim mecca it was marketed to be- even for old school WC Privateer and Freelancer fans.

How many of these EGS exclusives turned out to be lukewarm titles?
A lot of them for sure but I knew that MW5 was gonna be dope, I was not at all wrong. A bunch of my friends though didn't want to get it on EGS so they waited and when it came to steam they were like "Meh I have all these to play now, I'll grab it when it goes on Steam Sale" and I'm not sure it ever did. I am gonna have to hound them about because the expansion should be dropping soon and unless they made some stellar improvements to the AI, it would be dope to get a full 4p game going from start to finish.
 
I didn't know before reading OP that Control was a timed exclusive for 1 year on EGS. I wonder if it was worth $10mil. An indie game I've followed for years took the EGS exclusive agreement and got I think a year or two worth of money to keep the studio alive. I don't think they could have survived without it because almost no one plays their F2P game. I wonder how many of these "failure stories" Epic is funding, I guess they are hoping they can grab the next big thing by casting a wide net.
 
I came close to jumping in EGS just to get Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. But there was nothing else on the EGS platform I was remotely interested in. So I waited a year, and RGO made it on Steam in Sept 2020. And it turned out the was game was mostly meh. It wasn't the Space Sim mecca it was marketed to be- even for old school WC Privateer and Freelancer fans.

How many of these EGS exclusives turned out to be lukewarm titles?
Avg Metcritic Score of Timed Exclusives
  • Critical = 73.28, StDev = 9.40
  • User = 61.37, StDev = 15.16
Avg Metcritic Score of Full Exclusives
  • Critical = 75.60, StDev = 7.34
  • User = 56.13, StDev = 20.70
Avg Metcritic Score of All Exclusives
  • Critical = 73.93, StDev = 9.31
  • User = 60.44, StDev = 16.15
Pretty mediocre going by the standard review score curve.
 
A lot of them for sure but I knew that MW5 was gonna be dope, I was not at all wrong. A bunch of my friends though didn't want to get it on EGS so they waited and when it came to steam they were like "Meh I have all these to play now, I'll grab it when it goes on Steam Sale" and I'm not sure it ever did. I am gonna have to hound them about because the expansion should be dropping soon and unless they made some stellar improvements to the AI, it would be dope to get a full 4p game going from start to finish.
Just an example of how exclusivity can harm a game. Fewer copies were purchased due to a lack of options. Waiting for it to show up in a different store lowered interest in the game because people found other things to do and other things to play.
 
Just an example of how exclusivity can harm a game. Fewer copies were purchased due to a lack of options. Waiting for it to show up in a different store lowered interest in the game because people found other things to do and other things to play.
They did release it on the Microsoft Store 6 months after Epic. Exclusive to Tim means "not on Steam."
 
They did release it on the Microsoft Store 6 months after Epic. Exclusive to Tim means "not on Steam."
Yeah 2 of my buds got it on Gamepass, but they are waiting on GPU's to actually play it. The game doesn't do well on an old 970...
 
They made Rocket League free I'm SO HURT AS A CONSUMER WAHWAHWAH

Actually yes, I was hurt by it. Two of the DLC cars I bought are no longer available in the game, even if you still run the game through Steam. Which is mostly pointless because you need an Epic account to play now anyway. Epic buying that studio ended the licensing contract for the ghostbusters and knight rider cars.

On top of that from what I've read, the server quality has gone down and the game isn't as good from those who still play it. I'm not that bothered by the whole drama but it is basically $15 or so down the drain for a game that I will never bother with again. It does not engender trust in Epic as a company. I own a few games on their store but its about $75 worth, mostly exclusives and they were all bought on sale except for one that was $20 (and not worth buying in early access sadly).
 
Not much of a change but any change is good, but Valve made those pricing changes months before EGS opened. So maybe it was preemptive, maybe it was pressure from the other storefronts that saw growth increases in 2018, not going to complain but it’s not like it made any changes to pricing for the customer, improved customer service, or improved game launch quality. So I’m going to call it a balanced wash.
 
Not much of a change but any change is good, but Valve made those pricing changes months before EGS opened. So maybe it was preemptive, maybe it was pressure from the other storefronts that saw growth increases in 2018, not going to complain but it’s not like it made any changes to pricing for the customer, improved customer service, or improved game launch quality. So I’m going to call it a balanced wash.

It was directly after EGS announced their rates and obviously a response.

Personally I haven't gotten any benefit from Steam's reaction. I'm sure a lot of developers are happy that have gotten more money from their games, and maybe they're making more games or putting more effort into their games, maybe some games sold for cheaper than they would have before. But it's nothing consumers can directly see.

I have seen direct benefits from using EGS though. I've gotten 100s of free games. Now instead of buying random games for $1 or $5 on Steam sales and never playing them I claim free games on EGS and never play them.
Actually I have played some of the free EGS games quite a bit. And some of the games I was interested in trying and glad I didn't pay for them when I did.
I've also bought brand new games for $10 off using coupons on EGS which would have never happened on Steam. I have bought a couple games at normal price from EGS and I guess I'm happy knowing the developers get more money instead of EGS/Steam, but it's not really a big deal to me as a consumer.
 
It was directly after EGS announced their rates and obviously a response.

Personally I haven't gotten any benefit from Steam's reaction. I'm sure a lot of developers are happy that have gotten more money from their games, and maybe they're making more games or putting more effort into their games, maybe some games sold for cheaper than they would have before. But it's nothing consumers can directly see.

I have seen direct benefits from using EGS though. I've gotten 100s of free games. Now instead of buying random games for $1 or $5 on Steam sales and never playing them I claim free games on EGS and never play them.
Actually I have played some of the free EGS games quite a bit. And some of the games I was interested in trying and glad I didn't pay for them when I did.
I've also bought brand new games for $10 off using coupons on EGS which would have never happened on Steam. I have bought a couple games at normal price from EGS and I guess I'm happy knowing the developers get more money instead of EGS/Steam, but it's not really a big deal to me as a consumer.
I won't lie I have snagged some of those Free games, and simply talking about them has made me look at their catalog more.... So if anything the press they have taken a loss and they are fine with it isn't bad publicity and I am not a fan of Steam so I'll gladly welcome competition.
 
Zero free games + Control + Crysis Remastered. No forums for help as far as I can tell, news, info. EGS is so unlike Steam. No linux support, no hardware, no VR advancement. The games go for the same price??? So what is the advantage once again? Steam 30% fee does not go just into Valve pockets but much of it is obviously invested in the business from VR to a whole community. Plus many developers are present on Steam where you can give feedback and get further info for any troubles. It will be hard for me to get a game on EPIC over Steam if both have the game and also hard if not. What is with EPIC launcher, on a 3060x it takes 1% CPU power constantly or higher just sitting in the tray. What is EPIC doing with my CPU cycles. Steam 0%. Did Sweeney go full nuts or what?
 
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