Announcing the Epic Games Store

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Epic Games has announced its new, hand-curated Epic Games Store. The revenue split for the Epic Games Store will be 88% for the developers and Epic will receive 12%. There are no tiers or thresholds. If a project on the Epic Games Store uses Unreal Engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games store, out of Epic's 12%.

The Epic Games Store will certainly put pressure onto the Steam Store as Valve takes a much larger cut of sales on its platform. The Epic Games Store will support hand-curated PC and Mac games initially, but Tim Sweeney says in the announcement post that it will be expanded to Android and other open platforms throughout 2019. The Epic Games Store is open to all games built with any engine. It even has access to the 10,000-strong Epic Games Support-A-Creator program for developers to engage with content creators on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch.

As a developer, you control your game page and your newsfeed. There will be no store-placed ads or cross-marketing of competing games on your page, and no paid ads in search results. We've built this store and its economic model so that Epic's interests are aligned with your interests. Because of the high volume of Fortnite transactions, we can process store payments, serve bandwidth, and support customers very efficiently. From Epic's 12% store fee, we'll have a profitable business we'll grow and reinvest in for years to come!
 
I wonder if Valve announced their 20 - 25 - 30% tier system as a result from hearing about Epic's upcoming profits-splitting system. Or, if Epic had the idea upon hearing about Valve's change in their system, and figured out that they can outdo it by far.

I don't like having tons of stores and games spread across accounts. However, I think this is a bit exciting. Epic has a positive reputation, and Sweeney is an industry good guy, IMO.

I wonder how Valve and other digital retailers will respond. Because, I think it's inevitable that they will have to.
 
Nobu said:
I don't mind competition (welcome it, in fact) but if devs don't switch to it then there's not much point.
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I am not sure you understand welcoming competition if you don't give it a chance to grow and trash talk it out of the gate.
 
I'm fine with this as long as it doesn't mean yet another launcher that you have to use.

Otherwise, fuck 'em.
 
Nobu said:
I didn't say it was trash, though I guess comparing it to origin could be considered the same. Let's just say I hope it doesn't turn into another origin.
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What's wrong with Origin? I only use it for Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect 3, and BF4/1/V, but it's worked fine for all of those games. It's not intrusive or a resource hog. Never crashes on me. I mean, aside from it's association with EA, I can't think of a real complaint.

My only issue with more stores is that I prefer having an integrated friends list and having 3-4 clients running is annoying, but from a developer standpoint, 88% (93% if using Unreal Engine) of revenue > 70% of revenue.
 
So. Many. Stores.
I don't mind them as long as they don't require launchers and I can just add the games to Steam.
I guess it's the downside of the digital age. Too many exclusive means of digital distribution. Pretty soon every record label, every movie studio, and every game studio will have their own store.
 
ChoGGi said:
If the savings are passed onto the customer, that sounds good to me.
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It almost certainly won't be; all this really affects is how much of the revenue get eaten by the third party. While good for developers/publishers, this won't affect the end-user aside from having yet another application to manage.

I can't wait for the guy who makes a library manager that let's you compare the cost of titles across differing services, and allows you to launch all titles you own from one central location; could be some money in that...[*goes off to start developing said application*]
 
The competition will be healthy for devs I believe. The high costs really do hurt indie and upcoming devs so I do think it will help them as there are lots of gems out there and great ideas that people can't afford to make and sell.What might not be good as we go down this road is new pc gamers. With console you just have B&M stores for physical copies, or keys that you redeem on the console. But you have just one library. WIth pc you have multiple libraries through different distribution platforms which I could as something to be confused about.

I do also see that opportunity of a library manager that could hide the different stores from the end user and would search for the best price. (i know there is google). In the end the easier it is to buy and play the games you want is best for the pc gaming platform as a whole. Maybe epic will be a great addition.

My ultimate worry is what if one of these stores starves out another and we lose whole libraries of games. I know as digital we don't 'own' anything but still. I always picture gas stations popping up next to eachother and then one eventually losing the battle and goes under.
 
scojer said:
If someone was smart they'd make a program that you can sign into Steam, Epic, Blizzard, Origin, Bethesda, etc. and have all of your games there.
If you want to purchase games you'd still have to use the respective stores/launchers but a universal library is what I want with all these different marketplaces launching.
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https://www.launchbox-app.com/
https://gameroom.me/

And up until Windows 10 1803, there was the Windows Games Explorer.
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Rizen said:
What's wrong with Origin? I only use it for Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect 3, and BF4/1/V, but it's worked fine for all of those games. It's not intrusive or a resource hog. Never crashes on me. I mean, aside from it's association with EA, I can't think of a real complaint.

My only issue with more stores is that I prefer having an integrated friends list and having 3-4 clients running is annoying, but from a developer standpoint, 88% (93% if using Unreal Engine) of revenue > 70% of revenue.
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I think Origin is the best client out there right now as far as managing your game library. Uplay is also pretty good: I think their storefront is superior to everybody else right now. All these launchers have continued to modernize and improve while Steam has been stagnant. Steam, while still utilitarian, is very dated compared to all the others out there right now.
 
I know two game devs who are itching for this thing to launch and that is a very small corner of the world market.

Go EPIC!
 
Armenius said:
https://www.launchbox-app.com/
https://gameroom.me/

And up until Windows 10 1803, there was the Windows Games Explorer.
View attachment 125128


I think Origin is the best client out there right now as far as managing your game library. Uplay is also pretty good: I think their storefront is superior to everybody else right now. All these launchers have continued to modernize and improve while Steam has been stagnant. Steam, while still utilitarian, is very dated compared to all the others out there right now.
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Maybe it's improved, I haven't used it in a while. Not a lot of EA games I like anymore, mostly just the classics...generally the ones EA bought, not the ones they originally published.
 
Rizen said:
99% of internet gaming posts - whether it's here or Reddit - are toxic. I'm not sure if it was ever better or I just never noticed it before I got older but it's really mentally exhausting trying to have a conversation about games on the internet these days.
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Isn't that the vast majority of things on the internet though?
 
Rizen said:
What's wrong with Origin? I only use it for Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect 3, and BF4/1/V, but it's worked fine for all of those games. It's not intrusive or a resource hog. Never crashes on me. I mean, aside from it's association with EA, I can't think of a real complaint.

My only issue with more stores is that I prefer having an integrated friends list and having 3-4 clients running is annoying, but from a developer standpoint, 88% (93% if using Unreal Engine) of revenue > 70% of revenue.
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Armenius said:
I think Origin is the best client out there right now as far as managing your game library. Uplay is also pretty good: I think their storefront is superior to everybody else right now. All these launchers have continued to modernize and improve while Steam has been stagnant. Steam, while still utilitarian, is very dated compared to all the others out there right now.
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Origin is awful for organized/premade multiplayer. When using it for ME3, Mass Effect Andromeda, BF1, and BFV (beta), my group just had a hard time getting into the same servers/parties. Even when grouped, there was some strange issue where our party couldn't hear certain players on voice chat, so we had to use Discord. Their overlay was slow when it actually worked, otherwise it wouldn't come up at all or be completely non-responsive. For library management, it's generally more intuitive than Steam. But for everything else it's frustrating as hell to use.

The only launcher (other than Steam) that handles grouping/social functions and games management well is Battle.net, IME. Never have problems switching games, servers, groups, or using voice chat. It always works, and in the case of voice chat, it works better than Steam.
 
Darunion said:
Armenius Wow I was unaware of these managers. Thank you, will have to try when I get off work.
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The Windows Game Explorer was awesome on paper, but the thumbnails were hit and miss and the editing programs at least used to be super clunky. I used to use it in Win 7 and 8 and was constantly struggling with it.
There are 2-3 game manager apps that work pretty well. Playnite and Photon are the ones I've messed with.

I've just started using Steam as a front end for most things. You can add non-Steam games to your library easily (even Win10 games via UWPHook) and there's a large community making Grid-style games images for it. If you launch a non-Steam game you can still use the Steam overlay and it generally just launches whatever DRM launcher games require. I find it to be the most trouble-free games library launcher and it's coincidentally the one that has most of my games library, too.
 
Domingo said:
The Windows Game Explorer was awesome on paper, but the thumbnails were hit and miss and the editing programs at least used to be super clunky. I used to use it in Win 7 and 8 and was constantly struggling with it.
There are 2-3 game manager apps that work pretty well. Playnite and Photon are the ones I've messed with.

I've just started using Steam as a front end for most things. You can add non-Steam games to your library easily (even Win10 games via UWPHook) and there's a large community making Grid-style games images for it. If you launch a non-Steam game you can still use the Steam overlay and it generally just launches whatever DRM launcher games require. I find it to be the most trouble-free games library launcher and it's coincidentally the one that has most of my games library, too.
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The only issue with adding non-Steam games is you have to do it manually for each game you want to add.
 
Not a huge fan of the Epic launcher, but I'm glad to see someone actually stepping up to compete with Steam in a more tangible way. Sure we have Origin and Uplay's stores, but they're mostly exclusive to their parent companies, and we have things like GoG's launcher, but they're much less known. Seeing someone as big as Epic with as many consistent users as Epic step up and directly compete with Steam is pretty nice.

Competition in the marketplace is good for consumers.
 
I’m on board for some competition, especially if it makes price drops quicker and sales more often!

What’s the difference between managing a handful of game launchers and managing every single game individually through their own desktop icons like in the old days? I added the battle.net games that I play to Steam as well as a few other randoms like Tarkov just to keep my desktop less cluttered. Anything I can’t manually add to steam I have other ways to access, but I’ve never found it to be an unburdonable inconvenience to launch them through their own launchers.
 
Armenius said:
https://www.launchbox-app.com/
https://gameroom.me/

And up until Windows 10 1803, there was the Windows Games Explorer.
View attachment 125128


I think Origin is the best client out there right now as far as managing your game library. Uplay is also pretty good: I think their storefront is superior to everybody else right now. All these launchers have continued to modernize and improve while Steam has been stagnant. Steam, while still utilitarian, is very dated compared to all the others out there right now.
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Was not aware of those, but I personally think the steam client is the best I've used. Granted I have not used Origin or Uplay in many moons.
 
The thing that annoys me is that we've had a crap-ton of launchers come out since Steam and I've yet to see any real change from the "marketplace competition". If anything things have gotten worse; no more flash sales, deep discounts are more rare than they were, and now we have a ton of clients to deal with. The only competition that's improved things for the consumer has been from the 3rd party key sellers like GMG, GOG, Humble, Indiegala, CDKeys, etc.

I was a proponent for Origin in it's early days but I've seen that new launchers change nothing except the amount of hoops you jump through. Sure the publishers get to keep more of their money but that doesn't translate into any benefits for us. You can see that through the prevalence of loot boxes, season passes that don't include all the DLC, pay 2 win/accelerate advancement, and the other schemes that publishers have devised. Then on top of that you have the likelihood that these launchers are all data-mining your PC whenever they're open also.
 
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Nobu said:
Ugh...
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The greatest benefit from this is that we are going ot see pressure on Google and Apple to be more open to stores on their platforms. Apple cannot remain closed forever, they are going to have to open up to other stores or face increasing pressure. google has to stop acting like anything that doesnt come from their store is going to kill your device. This is a good tring.
 
Ultima99 said:
I've always respected Tim Sweeny. I'm willing to give this a chance.
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I've not. The fact that he sold out to the Chinese and restructured Epic to specifically focus on the worst video game revenue model so far created puts him on my shit list. The constant scaremongering of Windows he does also doesn't help his case.
 
Bankie said:
The thing that annoys me is that we've had a crap-ton of launchers come out since Steam and I've yet to see any real change from the "marketplace competition". If anything things have gotten worse; no more flash sales, deep discounts are more rare than they were, and now we have a ton of clients to deal with. The only competition that's improved things for the consumer has been from the 3rd party key sellers like GMG, GOG, Humble, Indiegala, CDKeys, etc.

I was a proponent for Origin in it's early days but I've seen that new launchers change nothing except the amount of hoops you jump through. Sure the publishers get to keep more of their money but that doesn't translate into any benefits for us. You can see that through the prevalence of loot boxes, season passes that don't include all the DLC, pay 2 win/accelerate advancement, and the other schemes that publishers have devised. Then on top of that you have the likelihood that these launchers are all data-mining your PC whenever they're open also.
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I agree with this sentiment, but I don't think we've ever had someone as big as Epic try to make a well-rounded, competitive marketplace. It sounds like they want to accept any developers on their platform, instead of just games owned by their company (like Origin and Uplay), and thanks to Fortnite, they have an absolutely massive existing customer base that will see this new marketplace every time they go to launch their favorite game. I, too, have been disappointed by the "competition" that people like EA and GoG have offered, but I think if anyone has a chance, someone already as big as Epic is does. Let's just hope they use their power responsibly. If they do this as well as they've done Fortnite BR, then we, the consumers, are in for a good ride.
 
Armenius said:
I've not. The fact that he sold out to the Chinese and restructured Epic to specifically focus on the worst video game revenue model so far created puts him on my shit list. The constant scaremongering of Windows he does also doesn't help his case.
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I'm curious what you mean by "worst video game revenue model ever." Fortnite has been touted by many, even microtransaction haters, as, at the very least, an acceptable and decent system for a F2P game, though you could be talking about something else entirely.
 
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