Epic Claims Exclusives Strategy Success after Metro Exodus Outsells Last Light at Launch

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This one is a few days old, but bears mentioning. At the 2019 Games Developer Conference Steve Allison, head of the Epic Games Store made the bold claim that the Epic store and their policy of pursuing exclusives was a resounding success, pointing to the fact that Metro Exodus had sold more copies than Last Light did during its launch on Steam.

He seems to be forgetting that the PC Game industry is undergoing a renaissance, and is much larger today than it was only 6 years ago when Last Light launched, and that it received nowhere near the pre-launch hype that Exodus has, ever since it was announced that it would be an open world game set in the Metro universe.

I'm willing to wager that as much of a sales success as Metro Exodus has been thus far, it pales in comparison to what it would have been like without the Epic exclusive debacle. Anyone else?
 
I can't wait to see the sheer volume of sales on Exodus the moment it hits steam in 2020.

Of course people are going to cave in and buy the game from Epic when they're forced to and just want to play the game. It's like saying strongarming my little brother for his lunch money every day was a success. However the sentiment is there, almost everybody voicing an opinion online seems to want their games on pretty much anything but epic..

Personally I don't even really care how shady epic is, considering I never wanted to buy digital games in the first place, but Steam is a wayyy better platform.. Achievements, friends, chat, profiles. I say this every time, steam is a veritable social network first and gaming platform second. Epic is putting nothing on the table that interests me.

It's really going to hit the fan when Borderlands 3 comes around if it's an epic timed exclusive, because I bet by the time it comes around on steam, steam players won't be able to play with epic players unless some Fortnite level deals are made with valve. On the other hand, it would be nice to see PC version of Borderlands able to match up with friends on consoles, so far that has been the one thing Epic has done for us.
 
Nvidia cards sold 50% of the game.

lmao one of the finer points yet. Have the other games on these RTX game bundles also been Epic exclusives?



3rd entry in an established series outperforms the second entry that followed a total flop
Must be the platform (y)

Did the first game really sell poorly? I played that quite a few times circa 2010. I actually haven't finished Last Light yet, but will get there.
 
Mode13 as a holder two of the games are on the Origin platform only this game is on the Epic platform. But that's how I got this title so meh?
 
Did the first game really sell poorly? I played that quite a few times circa 2010. I actually haven't finished Last Light yet, but will get there.

I'm not sure. I think it had a slow start. It was - after all - a tunnel shooter from a previously unknown developer.

I feel like it gained notoriety over time as more tech sites used it for testing, as it was one of the more challenging titles graphically at the time, and one of the first to get patched with DX11 support.
 
Blah blah blah, fuck Epic. Borderlands will be an Epic Store exclusive, fuck them too.

I'm not inclined to care. I didn't play any of the previous Borderlands games. I probably won't play this one either.
 
Blah blah blah, fuck Epic. Borderlands 3 will be an Epic Store exclusive, fuck them too.

Why? I don't care if the only place you can buy Borderlands 3 is from some guy named Feech who's selling them out of the trunk of his Cadillac behind the bowling alley. I'll be there most likely day one ready to buy.

Steam, Orign, Epic, Gamrstop, local Walmart.... Who cares what retailer you buy it from? If it's a game you want and will enjoy, I don't get why everybody would lose their minds.
 
Why? I don't care if the only place you can buy Borderlands 3 is from some guy named Feech who's selling them out of the trunk of his Cadillac behind the bowling alley. I'll be there most likely day one ready to buy.

Steam, Orign, Epic, Gamrstop, local Walmart.... Who cares what retailer you buy it from? If it's a game you want and will enjoy, I don't get why everybody would lose their minds.

Oh, I wouldn't mind buying it from Feech, Walmart or a brick and mortar store either, actually I'd prefer it over Epics Store, less of a security risk. I don't at this point feel comfortable giving Epic my card info.
 
Why? I don't care if the only place you can buy Borderlands 3 is from some guy named Feech who's selling them out of the trunk of his Cadillac behind the bowling alley. I'll be there most likely day one ready to buy.

Steam, Orign, Epic, Gamrstop, local Walmart.... Who cares what retailer you buy it from? If it's a game you want and will enjoy, I don't get why everybody would lose their minds.

Shady chinese company, spyware, stupid interface, shady business practices, no cloud saves, no steam friends, no personal profile, no achievements, why shouldn't it be right next to where we own borderlands 1 and 2, and so on and so on. It's been done to death and people have their positions, fair on each side IMO.


I'm not sure. I think it had a slow start. It was - after all - a tunnel shooter from a previously unknown developer.

I feel like it gained notoriety over time as more tech sites used it for testing, as it was one of the more challenging titles graphically at the time, and one of the first to get patched with DX11 support.

You're probably right. I lived on overclock.net in those days and everybody used it to show off their GPU prowess, so I bought a copy and enjoyed it quite a bit.
 
Why? I don't care if the only place you can buy Borderlands 3 is from some guy named Feech who's selling them out of the trunk of his Cadillac behind the bowling alley. I'll be there most likely day one ready to buy.

Steam, Orign, Epic, Gamrstop, local Walmart.... Who cares what retailer you buy it from? If it's a game you want and will enjoy, I don't get why everybody would lose their minds.


Couldn't disagree more.

First and foremost it's the principle of the thing. I will not reward a company that pursues anti-consumer exclusive bribes with my hard earned cash.

Secondly, in this day and age when everything is spying on us, it is in everyone's best interest to minimize the number of apps and programs they have installed.

I already have Steam and GOG, and it will be a cold day in hell before I install or use any other client, including the Microsoft store.

I won't even buy a title in Steam if it means I have to sign up for a third party client when I run the game (I'm looking at you EA/Origin).

The last thing I need is yet another set of malicious DRM and spyware installed on my machine, or yet another service that had my payment info that can get hacked.

At this point I don't care anymore. If a title is not on either Steam or GoG it won't be getting my money. No franchise, no title has enough of a draw that an exclusive is going to suck me over, and honestly I am disappointed in all those who are so pathetically weak-willed that they don't even put up an assemblamce of a fight and allow the anti-consumer assholes to win.

I'll stop playing games all together before I give those evil sons of bitches any of my money.
 
Couldn't disagree more.

First and foremost it's the principle of the thing. I will not reward a company that pursues anti-consumer exclusive bribes with my hard earned cash.

Secondly, in this day and age when everything is spying on us, it is in everyone's best interest to minimize the number of apps and programs they have installed.

I already have Steam and GOG, and it will be a cold day in hell before I install or use any other client, including the Microsoft store.

I won't even buy a title in Steam if it means I have to sign up for a third party client when I run the game (I'm looking at you EA/Origin).

The last thing I need is yet another set of malicious DRM and spyware installed on my machine, or yet another service that had my payment info that can get hacked.

At this point I don't care anymore. If a title is not on either Steam or GoG it won't be getting my money. No franchise, no title has enough of a draw that an exclusive is going to suck me over, and honestly I am disappointed in all those who are so pathetically weak-willed that they don't even put up an assemblamce of a fight and allow the anti-consumer assholes to win.

I'll stop playing games all together before I give those evil sons of bitches any of my money.

This 100% agree. My feelings exactly.
 
Couldn't disagree more.


No franchise, no title has enough of a draw that an exclusive is going to suck me over, and honestly I am disappointed in all those who are so pathetically weak-willed that they don't even put up an assemblamce of a fight and allow the anti-consumer assholes to win.

The universe unfolds based on the average. The average person these days doesn't seem to really care about anything anymore, at most they just want to share their hip opinion but make no sacrifice to back them up. They just want their item and that's that. That's why a company like Epic is having these "successes". Do people even have the time or attention span to even consider why so many people hate Epic? I doubt it..

If your corporation is designed to maximize profit, nothing will make the financials shinier then figuring out what the average dope will blow money on. Unfortunately that's the world we live in.

Epic also came out of the gate strongly by painting themselves as the hero against the evil empire of Steam who gouges the little developers out of every last penny (when in reality it's publishers like EA who are the prime evil), a lovely little tale to convert the masses.
 
User reviews on Metacritic gave it a poor to mediocre score. Looks like the game got watered down to appeal to a wider audience.

I'll wait for it to show up on Steam and then wait for a sale.
 
This is a garbage rationale for a garbage supposition - there's no surprise that Metro Exodus sold better in its first week than the previous titles, even on Epic. The first two titles are niche Russian-inspired RPG shooters that were "slow burns" thanks to Steam allowed to take a long time to gain fans; the creation of "Redux" versions of both titles would majorly improve and come WAY later for both. Not to mention eventual Redux 2033 and Last Light support for Mac/Linux etc.. came to a lot of sales for a niche title over a long time, but not that many in the first week after release. Furthermore, Metro Exodus had both months of Steam pre-orders and interest in the series in general, plus the huge publicity explosion thanks to both positive/negative discussion of Epic exclusivity. Obviously, all those who didn't think about it and/or didn't care about Epic's horrid policies went ahead and purchased; not to mention all of the cash up front for Exodus that Epic paid for the exclusive rights.

This is not surprising. The real questions that need to be asked is "Would they have made MORE money had they released the game on multiple platforms including Steam " and "Would their long term profit have been better with multi-store, Steam focused release" - I'm pretty sure that both are a resounding "Yes!", especially given the pushback. Furthermore, this entire thing is an information operation by Epic - they need to justify to other publishers (remember they openly don't give two shits about player/customer interests) that the Faustian bargain struck by Metro MUST have paid off, right? Otherwise they'd be admitting that this tactic they've put all of their eggs within the basket (and purged huge amounts of goodwill in the process) is insufficient. I'm sure even Metro's publishers/devs are contractually obligated not to counteract this line of thought one way or another.

A pox on Epic for their consumer, developer, and industry poisoning behavior such as exclusivity and even worse for how and why they have implemented it. The market must perceive them as toxic so that no companies want to get involved with their future dealings in any way, much less the kind of Faustian bargains that Epic seems to insist upon. Epic could have been a champion for openness and made their fortunes via the Unreal Engine licensing (improving it significantly for cross-platform use, widely adopted, and generally not opening a Store directly themselves), but they instead chose the worst possible path, sadly.
 
This game sucks, yes i have play it.
If some rando holds me by the hand for the whole story ie: "oh lazervicthc lets push the button, lets talk to father, don't make me so worried." I swear I have not had my hand held so much since press f to pay respects.
Other than the shit story, the game-play was meh.
 
This game sucks, yes i have play it.
If some rando holds me by the hand for the whole story ie: "oh lazervicthc lets push the button, lets talk to father, don't make me so worried." I swear I have not had my hand held so much since press f to pay respects.
Other than the shit story, the game-play was meh.

you forgot to mention the fantastically long-winded cut scenes that can't be over-ridden even after the first play-thru at least, no key on my keyboard will cause a cut scene bypass. As I read other forums talking about game impressions it seemed common to read the following:

"I am so disappointed with this game. I've just completed the first mission after the opening area and I think I might be done with it."

10 minutes of cut scenes that you have to sit thru before you can start playing the game is IMO, well, stupid.

"Stupid Cut scenes"
 
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Oh, I wouldn't mind buying it from Feech, Walmart or a brick and mortar store either, actually I'd prefer it over Epics Store, less of a security risk. I don't at this point feel comfortable giving Epic my card info.

I totally understand this concern but considering Epic makes like 300 million a month with Fortnite I think they've shown they can be trusted with your card info.

Shady chinese company, spyware, stupid interface, shady business practices, no cloud saves, no steam friends, no personal profile, no achievements, why shouldn't it be right next to where we own borderlands 1 and 2, and so on and so on. It's been done to death and people have their positions, fair on each side IMO.

I agree it's not as good a store as Steam but it's not horrible either and me personally, those aren't reasons for me not to buy a game I really want.

Couldn't disagree more.

First and foremost it's the principle of the thing. I will not reward a company that pursues anti-consumer exclusive bribes with my hard earned cash.

Secondly, in this day and age when everything is spying on us, it is in everyone's best interest to minimize the number of apps and programs they have installed.

I already have Steam and GOG, and it will be a cold day in hell before I install or use any other client, including the Microsoft store.

I won't even buy a title in Steam if it means I have to sign up for a third party client when I run the game (I'm looking at you EA/Origin).

The last thing I need is yet another set of malicious DRM and spyware installed on my machine, or yet another service that had my payment info that can get hacked.

At this point I don't care anymore. If a title is not on either Steam or GoG it won't be getting my money. No franchise, no title has enough of a draw that an exclusive is going to suck me over, and honestly I am disappointed in all those who are so pathetically weak-willed that they don't even put up an assemblamce of a fight and allow the anti-consumer assholes to win.

I'll stop playing games all together before I give those evil sons of bitches any of my money.

That's just an extreme overreaction. Those are the same sentiments people had when Origin was launched. Well it's been like 7 years and the sky hasn't fallen.

It's just a retail video game store, not Skynet.

I don't consider myself pathetically weak willed because I don't care what retailer I buy my games from. I mean if it was some shady fly by night outfit I'd be with y'all but like I mentioned above, Fortnite has 250,000,000 players right now paying in $300,000,000 a month off millions of transactions all over the world !! If Epic was a shady, evil software monster spying on your midget porn and stealing your card numbers, we'd have heard about it by now.
 
I can't wait to see the sheer volume of sales on Exodus the moment it hits steam in 2020.

This is what Im waiting for. Personally, I prefer to consolidate all my games on one launcher, so Ill be waiting until 2020.
 
Wow, lying through his teeth eh? The first 2 Metro had basically no marketing, while this one has been drummed up via so many venues (Nvidia is a huge one) it's not even comparable.
 
Tim Sweeney is a professional bullshitter / liar / con-man, and his claim about Metro Exodus doing well on EGS have already been debunked from many sources. From my perspective, he's acting out the cliche sociopathic / psychopathic CEO role over this whole exclusives / anti-competition thing of his.

The EGS exclusive deal for Metro Exodus can be seen to have tangible hurt its sales compared to what it should have done, and Last Light did better than Metro 2033 than Exodus did than Last Light:

Metro: Last Light first-week sales surpass 2033 lifetime sales in US


Metro Last Light in 2013 sold more than three times the number of PC copies in its first week what Metro 2033 did 3 years earlier.

There was a 3 year gap between Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light. There was a 6 year gap between Metro Last Light (2013) and Metro Exodus (2019).

There was a very large growth to the size of the PC gaming market from 2013 to 2019.

In 2013, console players constituted a greater % of gamers compared to PC players than they do in 2019. More people buy on PC instead of console in 2019 compared to 2013.

Metro Last Light physical sales sold more in its first week than Metro 2033 did in its first 3 years. A lot more people buy digitally in 2019 compared to 2013.

There was more Metro series brand recognition and word of mouth influence in 2019 than in 2013.

Metro Exodus was probably marketed a lot more than Last Light, to a much larger audience, and had a long advertising and hype period on Steam that Metro Last Light didn't have.


Plus, did Sweeney count ME copies that were bundled with new GPUs into his "2.5x" figure?



I think it's possible that Metro Exodus should have seen exponential sales-growth from Metro 2033 -> Metro Last Light. Yet, despite all its advantages, Metro Exodus sales showed a growth-rate that's lower than Metro 2033 -> Metro Last Light achieved.


Sweeney boasting that Metro Exodus sold more than 2.5 times (a pitiful amount more than LL, when it's looked at in context) on EGS what Last Light did on Steam is very disingenuous, trying to distract people from the details, and is propaganda and con-person speak.



Some additional info:

In 2013, the PC gaming industry's worth was an estimated $20.98 billion, with $6.05 billion of that being from non-MMO PC games.

In 2018, the PC games industry was worth was an estimated $32.9 billion, without MMO and non-MMO games being distinguished.

In 2013, there were around 8 million WoW subscribers. In Q2 2015, the number of WoW subscribers had dropped to 5.6 million - and I think that's the last time Blizzard reported the subscriber count. Don't know if that decline is a trend for all MMOs or not, but if it is then non-MMO PC gaming might account for a larger percentage of 2018's $32.9 billion PC games revenue than non-MMO PC gaming accounted for 2013's $20.98 billion PC games revenue.
 

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This is what Im waiting for. Personally, I prefer to consolidate all my games on one launcher, so Ill be waiting until 2020.

the Q I have about that is ... how much will Steam charge for a 2 year old game?
 
Only thing I can think is, imagine the sales numbers if it was also available on Steam.

I wonder what percentage of copies sold were Steam pre-orders?
 
Wow, lying through his teeth eh? The first 2 Metro had basically no marketing, while this one has been drummed up via so many venues (Nvidia is a huge one) it's not even comparable.

Pretty much. If it hadn't have been an RTX title, sales would have been lackluster at best. Deep Silver & Epic have nVidia to thank.
 
Why? I don't care if the only place you can buy Borderlands 3 is from some guy named Feech who's selling them out of the trunk of his Cadillac behind the bowling alley. I'll be there most likely day one ready to buy.

Steam, Orign, Epic, Gamrstop, local Walmart.... Who cares what retailer you buy it from? If it's a game you want and will enjoy, I don't get why everybody would lose their minds.
I'm dumbfounded how some people still don't get the issue here. It's not that it is another store. It is the fact that they are buying exclusive deals (ie, a monopoly) if a game is sold on origin you can still buy it at third parties, same goes for uplay, steam, and the rest. Epic store games can only be purchased trough the epic store, they set all the prices, there is no price war, regional pricing is fixed by them, which means we in central europe are getting the shaft as usual. Western prices with eastern wages.
 
the Q I have about that is ... how much will Steam charge for a 2 year old game?
Who cares, you can buy steam games at GMG, or cdkeys at least 25-40% cheaper than on steam all the time.
 
I'm dumbfounded how some people still don't get the issue here. It's not that it is another store. It is the fact that they are buying exclusive deals (ie, a monopoly) if a game is sold on origin you can still buy it at third parties, same goes for uplay, steam, and the rest. Epic store games can only be purchased trough the epic store, they set all the prices, there is no price war, regional pricing is fixed by them, which means we in central europe are getting the shaft as usual. Western prices with eastern wages.

I'm dumbfounded how people still don't know what a monopoly is. There is Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG. A monopoly would be if there was only one retailer that you could buy games at. I'd could argue Steam is a bigger monopoly than Epic as Steam is still the only place you can buy the vast majority of games. Epic is just the first in a long time to actually offer some competition for Steam.

Is Playstation a monopoly because I can only buy certain games for PS4? How about Xbox because there are certain games only available on Xbox? You can only buy Poulan lawn mowers at Home Depot. You can only buy Duralast batteries at Autozone. Crutchfield has many brands that are exclusive to them.

Retailer exclusive products have been around a long time. Yes its a pain in the balls to have 3 or 4 different apps on your PC but it's not the end of the world that we don't and certainly not anything worth getting this pissed off about and refusing to buy games.
 
I'm dumbfounded how people still don't know what a monopoly is. There is Steam, Origin, Uplay, GOG. A monopoly would be if there was only one retailer that you could buy games at.
And for epic exlusives that is exactly the case, you can only buy them at the epic store. You're not dumbfounded you're clearly in error.

I'd could argue Steam is a bigger monopoly than Epic as Steam is still the only place you can buy the vast majority of games. Epic is just the first in a long time to actually offer some competition for Steam.
Did you even read my damn post? Steam games are purchasable at a number of other stores besides the steam store.

Is Playstation a monopoly because I can only buy certain games for PS4? How about Xbox because there are certain games only available on Xbox? You can only buy Poulan lawn mowers at Home Depot. You can only buy Duralast batteries at Autozone. Crutchfield has many brands that are exclusive to them.
Those are first party exclusives eg they create a brand that they themselves sell. 3rd party exclusives are the problem.

Retailer exclusive products have been around a long time. Yes its a pain in the balls to have 3 or 4 different apps on your PC but it's not the end of the world that we don't and certainly not anything worth getting this pissed off about and refusing to buy games.
And what will it take for the fact to penetrate your head that IT IS NOT ABOUT THE LAUNCHER. Which was abundantly clear in my previous post also which you choose not to read or understand.
 
People will buy it from wherever... Same as they buy lootboxes.
Honestly, why give Steam a cut? After initial investment, what is the cost of digital distribution? Cents?
 
People will buy it from wherever... Same as they buy lootboxes.
Honestly, why give Steam a cut? After initial investment, what is the cost of digital distribution? Cents?

Bandwidth isn't free. They also have to factor in long term support. Patch downloads.... and re downloads potentially out years after Valve/Epic has taken their cut.

Would you trust any developer to continue offering a 50GB download of a game you bought for years ? People have come to trust Valve and Steam in that way.

And Epic might be taking a smaller cut... but they are still taking one. And if they fail and retreat in a year or two down the road ? Are the publishers themselves going to continue offering download services ect. Perhaps but it will cost them far more then the few % points they saved backing the new store.

If I was a share holder of a company like Take-Two I would be very nervous about them having their big name properties going exclusive with an unproven service... its a potential liability and write down at some point in the future if that store goes under. They would have to take care of customers and that would mean either launching their own service (or building enough of it to provide service) or right up paying Steam for access for all their previous customers purchase. (which steam isn't going to give away). Potentially the whole epic exclusive could really blow up on the AAA developers. Potential lost sales... and potential PR and profit eating customer support if the worst happens to Epics store. I get going with them and paying a smaller % to their service provider... that is logical. But exclusive. That seems super risky and pretty bone headed imo. I'm sure Epic offered some insane deals to the big AAA companies that have taken them up on their offer... still not sure its worth it for the risk for a 8-10% savings. (The big AAA companies aren't paying the full 30% the indies pay... and I'm sure for now Epic is basically giving them free access while those big fish are exclusive) If (when) the epic store fails I hope Gabe completely rapes those big AAA publishers needing service to mend their PR fail.
 
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Did you even read my damn post? Steam games are purchasable at a number of other stores besides the steam store.

Did you read mine? Several games on Steam you can't buy anywhere else. For a LONG time Steam was the only place to buy games.

Those are first party exclusives eg they create a brand that they themselves sell. 3rd party exclusives are the problem.

No those are products only avaliable thru a certain retailer. In other words a retailer exclusive product. This is nothing new, not even in PC gaming. That's why I don't understand all the outrage.

And what will it take for the fact to penetrate your head that IT IS NOT ABOUT THE LAUNCHER. Which was abundantly clear in my previous post also which you choose not to read or understand.

I don't know, what will it take to penetrate your head that I wasn't talking about a launcher? I was talking about retailer exclusive products which have been around a long time even in PC gaming... It was even the first sentence in that paragraph that you quoted but chose not to read or understand.
 
All of these arguments also need to take into account that the game was pirate-able within 48hrs of release or something.

Regardless, So many people are slaves to steam that most of the arguments are going to be one sided, and not actually arguments but yelling matches. I just use whatever launcher I need to play the game I want, if you don't have enough space in 2019 to handle that, you're doing it wrong. If that upsets you, don't play.
 
All of these arguments also need to take into account that the game was pirate-able within 48hrs of release or something.

It sure was, and the CPY edition played just fine without Steam or Epic DRM. Fuck em'.
 
I am disappointed in all those who are so pathetically weak-willed that they don't even put up an assemblamce of a fight and allow the anti-consumer assholes to win.

I'm disappointed in how tragic and hyperbolic people are these days. The spyware argument is lame, you're basically arguing that no one should install anything at all (including Windows 10), and you're already compromising by having Steam and GOG, not to mention any non-gaming online services you use. And the worst that has been proved about the EGS was how it was grabbing contacts from Steam to see if there were any it could import, but some people like to twist it into a fantasy that Epic is in the thrall of Tencent and therefore streaming your every move directly to the Chinese government 24/7.

To be fair I already had the client installed for UnrealEngine, but I was happy to get Subnautica for free, I was happy to get Metro for a good price and I've had a lot of fun playing it, I don't give a shit about crap like achievements, idiotic and meaningless user reviews, or Steam being a fucking "social network". Cloud saves would be nice, though.

I would no more avoid the EGS purely because of exclusivity than I would refuse to watch a particular TV show just because it was only on one channel, or refuse to eat at a restaurant just because its food wasn't sold at any other.
 
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