Epic paid $10.5 million upfront for Control exclusivity

Aireoth said:
Monthly fees for games are coming. If either monthly fees or streaming becomes mandatory to play new games, well that's when I'll be out.
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Yeah, if companies like Ubisoft get their way and turn PC gaming into Stadia-style closed streaming rental platforms, we'll be looking back at Steam vs EGS as being the golden years.

I have no real issues with EGS. I find it much more pleasant to use than the bloated, ugly shitware that Steam is now, including the new beta. Get out of my face and let me buy and play games. I don't need any of the "social network" garbage. I don't care that there's no shopping cart. I'd like broader cloud save support, but it's not a deal-breaker.
 
4saken said:
big fan of Origin/Uplay/MS Store/etc that give you the cheap sub model. Doesnt work for everyone sure, but as a fair weather gamer, which just a few titles i really will get excited about and be day one purchases, I much prefer to being able to play anything from a publishers catalog w/o having to pay full price. Don't really care about sales or indie titles anymore on steam. Client wise, steam is the best hands down by eons.

Steam is going to have to figure this out for folks like me, everything in life is going subscription. I know that's not a popular opinion here, but I do rather enjoy it.
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To people who only pay once or twice a month any subscription no matter the price is wasted money.
If gaming is going subscription only then I'll quit gaming. It's as simple as that. And I bet I'm not alone.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
That isn't how game development works. For an analogous example, that's like saying a book would be written better with a better split for the writer versus the publisher. Or a song would be better with a better split for the artist versus the record company.
The work is already completed before it goes on sale. The platform these titles are sold on and the split they get has nothing to do with how good development is.
Also Steam isn't nor has never been the only game in town. So your "20-40%" can't even be accurate, depending on physical or digital, and then which platform.
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And egs shills to this day conveniently forget 3rd party key selling, of which steam takes no share, but still provides the service. The 30/70 split is only for games sold on steam.
 
Litfod said:
Yeah, if companies like Ubisoft get their way and turn PC gaming into Stadia-style closed streaming rental platforms, we'll be looking back at Steam vs EGS as being the golden years.

I have no real issues with EGS. I find it much more pleasant to use than the bloated, ugly shitware that Steam is now, including the new beta. Get out of my face and let me buy and play games. I don't need any of the "social network" garbage. I don't care that there's no shopping cart. I'd like broader cloud save support, but it's not a deal-breaker.
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It will be a very long time, if ever, before there is any risk of that. Stadia is probably going to bomb.
 
4saken said:
steam is going to have to figure this out for folks like me, everything in life is going subscription. I know that's not a popular opinion here, but I do rather enjoy it.
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Heh, well the French courts didn't find Valve's argument that Steam is a subscription service to be very compelling, and sided with a group that thinks consumers should be able to resell games they purchased on Steam. Valve is appealing the decision.

Valve couldn't really do their own version of a subscription service though without massive buy-in from devs and publishers. They don't even make games anymore so it's not like they'd have much to contribute.
 
No surprise here. A newcomer has to flex some muscle to break into the market. This game would have probably gone to Steam otherwise because they have the biggest market share. Valve has been riding on this fact and getting free exclusives all these years. Things may be changing very soon. Their fees are far worse than EGS and they have no intention re restructure them. If each store had the same market share, I guarantee you that 90% of developers would choose EGS.

I wonder what features of Steam all the fanboys use who complain that EGS and the rest are shit. I just press play. That is all 95% of people do and I've yet to come across a launcher where that didn't work. I also use the friends list.

The FPS counter in Steam is useless because it is tiny and not customizable. I use Afterburner for all the stats I want displayed on the screen and more recently, AMD ReLive (but I wish you could customize it a bit more). I use Windows built in screen capture for stills. I use ReLive to capture high bit rate game footage.
 
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Staples said:
No surprise here. A newcomer has to flex some muscle to break into the market. This game would have probably gone to Steam otherwise because they have the biggest market share. Valve has been riding on this fact and getting free exclusives all these years. Things may be changing very soon. Their fees are far worse than EGS and they have no intention re restructure them. If each store had the same market share, I guarantee you that 90% of developers would choose EGS.

I wonder what features of Steam all the fanboys use who complain that EGS and the rest are shit. I just press play. That is all 95% of people do and I've yet to come across a launcher where that didn't work. I also use the friends list.

The FPS counter in Steam is useless because it is tiny and not customizable. I use Afterburner for all the stats I want displayed on the screen and more recently, AMD ReLive (but I wish you could customize it a bit more). I use Windows built in screen capture for stills. I use ReLive to capture high bit rate game footage.
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Control is coming to Steam in August next year.
 
Armenius said:
Control is coming to Steam in August next year.
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Good news. I'll grab it then, probably save $20 in the process.

Not sure what all the Steam hate is for... What other sites have multiple yearly sales where a game that was $59.99 can be found on sale for $9.99, or $4.99? Steam is amazing.
 
For those that didn't read the full article, it links to an FAQ from another developer for another game. Each contract is different for each game (not surprising) but in a nutshell this is roughly how it works:

Because Epic doesn’t yet have the same market share as their competitors, they offered us a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores.
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We got some cash money upfront from the deal so we can make the game we always wanted to with fewer compromises.
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Ooblets will be launching on PC through EGS. We won’t be selling the game on other PC stores for a pretty long while (that’s the exclusivity bit).
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Read more here:
https://ooblets.com/2019/07/we-did-the-thing/

Assuming Digital Bros. got a similar deal, that means the publisher won't make any additional money from Epic Games Store sales of Control until it earns back the €9.49 million upfront payment.
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Essentially, what we already knew. They won't get paid per sale until it breaks past the minimum sales guarantee. So if they flop they may be better off. At the same time, if the game does okay and pushes just slightly above the minimum number they won't gain anything. If they loose a big chunk of sales due to being on EGS but are still successful enough to pass their minimum they'll be worse off. Depends on the game and their contract.

So are they (developers) getting piles of money for nothing like some of the critics claimed? No. They're getting a minimum sales guarantee and if the game sells as expected the game developer/publisher doesn't take home any extra money. Well, except for the lower selling fees on EGS.

As an example, Borderlands 3 is breaking series records and probably won't get anything extra aside from the lower selling fees and waived UE4 fees. So Gearbox / 2K aren't going to get any extra piles of money thrown at them which goes contrary to the typical narrative against Epic.
 
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Aix. said:
Heh, well the French courts didn't find Valve's argument that Steam is a subscription service to be very compelling, and sided with a group that thinks consumers should be able to resell games they purchased on Steam. Valve is appealing the decision.

Valve couldn't really do their own version of a subscription service though without massive buy-in from devs and publishers. They don't even make games anymore so it's not like they'd have much to contribute.
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This is why I think that Apple Arcade and Google's Stadia are actually going to do very well, they both have some great developer buy in's and the lack of P2W/loot crate BS involved with the titles will be a refreshing change. If they get enough developers on board then there will be enough new content to keep people happy and subscribing.
 
Flogger23m said:
For those that didn't read the full article, it links to an FAQ from another developer for another game. Each contract is different for each game (not surprising) but in a nutshell this is roughly how it works:







Read more here:
https://ooblets.com/2019/07/we-did-the-thing/




Essentially, what we already knew. They won't get paid per sale until it breaks past the minimum sales guarantee. So if they flop they may be better off. At the same time, if the game does okay and pushes just slightly above the minimum number they won't gain anything. If they loose a big chunk of sales due to being on EGS but are still successful enough to pass their minimum they'll be worse off. Depends on the game and their contract.

So are they (developers) getting piles of money for nothing like some of the critics claimed? No. They're getting a minimum sales guarantee and if the game sells as expected the game developer/publisher doesn't take home any extra money. Well, except for the lower selling fees on EGS.
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That's actually a remarkably fair contract, Epic is putting their money where their mouth is and it makes putting your titles on EGS a very low risk investment
 
Lakados said:
This is why I think that Apple Arcade and Google's Stadia are actually going to do very well, they both have some great developer buy in's and the lack of P2W/loot crate BS involved with the titles will be a refreshing change. If they get enough developers on board then there will be enough new content to keep people happy and subscribing.
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I just don't understand why anyone thinks it will be anything but a niche option for people with insane connection speeds in optimal locations, and on specific game types suited to the whole operation.

We do everything we can to lower not only network latency but also input lag...and yet we're expecting to send our input actions to the server site, have the server farm generate 2K-4K images and send them back to us at 60-240 FPS, and do so continuously with no lag. Maybe some on-rails action or racing games might be passable, but I'd like to see even one FPS pulled off this way.
 
Aix. said:
I just don't understand why anyone thinks it will be anything but a niche option for people with insane connection speeds in optimal locations, and on specific game types suited to the whole operation.

We do everything we can to lower not only network latency but also input lag...and yet we're expecting to send our input actions to the server site, have the server farm generate 2K-4K images and send them back to us at 60-240 FPS, and do so continuously with no lag. Maybe some on-rails action or racing games might be passable, but I'd like to see even one FPS pulled off this way.
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I think it operates the same way downloading videos on Netflix or Prime works. You can use them in offline modes and the games validate themselves periodically. Meaning you don't have to have internet access all the time.

https://teknologya.com/apple-arcade-how-it-works/

teknologya said:
Apple Arcade will therefore offer games normally available for free payment thanks to the monthly subscription: be careful though, it will not be streaming games.

The various titles available for Apple Arcade will still have to be downloaded to the device, whether it’s an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac, but you can still try it through a small demo.
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I think people have a misunderstanding of what people mean by streaming and/or subscription service.
 
Lakados said:
This is why I think that Apple Arcade and Google's Stadia are actually going to do very well, they both have some great developer buy in's and the lack of P2W/loot crate BS involved with the titles will be a refreshing change. If they get enough developers on board then there will be enough new content to keep people happy and subscribing.
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Apple Arcade is an outstanding service for the niche "hardcore" mobile gaming market. However, since Apple Arcade forbids in-game transactions in games its not going to get the Fortnite, PUBG mobile market. Stadia is likely to bomb.
 
Derangel said:
Apple Arcade is an outstanding service for the niche "hardcore" mobile gaming market. However, since Apple Arcade forbids in-game transactions in games its not going to get the Fortnite, PUBG mobile market. Stadia is likely to bomb.
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You mean specifically for the subscription service right? Well that doesn't matter though. Fortnite is free, it doesn't need to be included in Apple Arcade pricing. I can already download it and play it for free. And/or choose to pay or not pay for in-game transactions. The same with PUBG.
 
Aix. said:
I just don't understand why anyone thinks it will be anything but a niche option for people with insane connection speeds in optimal locations, and on specific game types suited to the whole operation.

We do everything we can to lower not only network latency but also input lag...and yet we're expecting to send our input actions to the server site, have the server farm generate 2K-4K images and send them back to us at 60-240 FPS, and do so continuously with no lag. Maybe some on-rails action or racing games might be passable, but I'd like to see even one FPS pulled off this way.
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twitchy FPS titles no, but that still leaves a lot of other game types that could be done very well in this environment. RPG's and MMO's being big ones the refresh rate in turn based titles and platformers doesnt need to be super high and in a lot of those cases backgrounds and environmentals can be pre rendered and downloaded to the local console.

edit for clarity, I was using FPS for both First Person Shooters and for Frames Per Second that that was confusing.
 
Lakados said:
That's actually a remarkably fair contract, Epic is putting their money where their mouth is and it makes putting your titles on EGS a very low risk investment
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"Low risk" other than the not immediately measurable, long-term chilling effect of alienating many fans, if not outright pissing them off into boycotting their company and games; risking franchise death.

A publisher taking Tim Sweeney's bribe - then hoping to god the backlash blows over - is quite the game of chicken, considering disgruntled gamers have a thousand other games they can play instead of the ones from a company they perceive as having sold out to EGS.
 
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Derangel said:
Apple Arcade is an outstanding service for the niche "hardcore" mobile gaming market. However, since Apple Arcade forbids in-game transactions in games its not going to get the Fortnite, PUBG mobile market. Stadia is likely to bomb.
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I haven’t updated yet myself and don’t know much about Apple Arcade yet either, but I did notice in the release notes that native support for connecting Xbox and PS4 controllers was also added.

So with half decent real games and real controllers, yeah I could see Arcade being moderately successful.
 
odditory said:
"Low risk" other than the not immediately measurable, long-term chilling effect of alienating many fans, if not outright pissing them off into boycotting their company and games; risking franchise death.

That's quite the game of chicken, considering disgruntled gamers have a thousand other games they can play instead of the ones from a company they perceived as having sold out to EGS.
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I doubt the majority of people care that much. Internet outrage rarely effects the majority. That said, a big thing that might effect it going forward is how the devs treat their customers after the announcement. For AAA studios that doesn't matter, but for indie devs their reputation can be a pretty big deal.
 
Lakados said:
This is why I think that Apple Arcade and Google's Stadia are actually going to do very well, they both have some great developer buy in's and the lack of P2W/loot crate BS involved with the titles will be a refreshing change. If they get enough developers on board then there will be enough new content to keep people happy and subscribing.
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You shouldn't lump those two together. They are completely different.

Apple Arcade isn't streaming. It's downloading and playing locally. Also Arcade is basically a monthly subscription to all the games on Arcade for one low fee. The reviews are that it is pretty good, and makes mobile gaming decent again. Removing the BS: No ads, no pay to win.

Google Stadia is streaming. It's like have a powerful remote computer you are renting. The monthly fee is for equipment rental, not games. You still have to buy the games.
 
Flogger23m said:
As an example, Borderlands 3 is breaking series records and probably won't get anything extra aside from the lower selling fees and waived UE4 fees. So Gearbox / 2K aren't going to get any extra piles of money thrown at them which goes contrary to the typical narrative against Epic.
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Not where EGS is concerned, and not if you look beyond the puffed up headline and read the very carefully chosen language. They danced around talking about how many actual customers bought the game on EGS.

If that simple stat was also "record breaking", it would've been the perfect opportunity to claim vindication for a deal they knew was controversial.
 
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Snowdog said:
You shouldn't lump those two together. They are completely different.

Apple Arcade isn't streaming. It's downloading and playing locally. Also Arcade is basically a monthly subscription to all the games on Arcade for one low fee. The reviews are that it is pretty good, and makes mobile gaming decent again. Removing the BS: No ads, no pay to win.

Google Stadia is streaming. It's like have a powerful remote computer you are renting. The monthly fee is for equipment rental, not games. You still have to buy the games.
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Oh well that is a fundamental misunderstanding on my part of how Google was running the Stadia service. I thought you purchased the hardware and were paying a monthly/anual subscription fee to get access to the games with an option to buy them much like how Origin's Premier service works.
 
odditory said:
"Low risk" other than the not immediately measurable, long-term chilling effect of alienating many fans, if not outright pissing them off into boycotting their company and games; risking franchise death.

A publisher taking Tim Sweeney's bribe - then hoping to god the backlash blows over - is quite the game of chicken, considering disgruntled gamers have a thousand other games they can play instead of the ones from a company they perceive as having sold out to EGS.
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You need to stop assuming your opinion is anything other than a basically irrelevant fringe one.

News just came out that Borderlands 3 is cleaning up like never before on EGS, as did Metro Exodus. The extremely angry, "no steam, no buy" ranters, are an irrelevant fringe in the market and seem to be dwindling as time goes by.

odditory said:
Not where EGS is concerned, and not if you look beyond the puffed up headline and read the very carefully chosen language. They danced around talking about how many actual customers bought the game on EGS.

If that simple stat was also "record breaking", it would've been the perfect opportunity to claim vindication for a deal they knew was controversial.
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First day and already double the all time concurrent record for PC users. So obviously healthy PC sales.

You can keep ranting, but you already lost.
 
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Derangel said:
I doubt the majority of people care that much. Internet outrage rarely effects the majority. That said, a big thing that might effect it going forward is how the devs treat their customers after the announcement. For AAA studios that doesn't matter, but for indie devs their reputation can be a pretty big deal.
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If those individuals that care enough to wait the year for it to come to Steam actually do wait then they probably also would have waited for one of the many steam sales and got it at a huge discount anyways so if you factor that in I doubt in the long run they are out all that much.
 
How do we know they are not reporting the upfront guarantees that game xyz sold x copies in a week? It would be so easy for epic to pad the numbers the fact they make a big deal about how every big game on egs is breaking records should make everyone a little skeptical.
 
tunatime said:
How do we know they are not reporting the upfront guarantees that game xyz sold x copies in a week? It would be so easy for epic to pad the numbers the fact they make a big deal about how every big game on egs is breaking records should make everyone a little skeptical.
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2K is reporting the sales for Borderlands, not Epic.
 
tunatime said:
How do we know they are not reporting the upfront guarantees that game xyz sold x copies in a week? It would be so easy for epic to pad the numbers the fact they make a big deal about how every big game on egs is breaking records should make everyone a little skeptical.
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What good would it be for them to pad the numbers, if they state sales over the minimum guarantee then they would have to pay out the difference and if the game hadn't actually sold then Epic is just out more money and the Developer just doesnt care because they got paid.
 
where are the numbers if there so great? i dont see anything but a hot air bag flapping his gums.lets see the numbers,real numbers what are they afraid of. got no hate for egs
 
Lakados said:
What good would it be for them to pad the numbers, if they state sales over the minimum guarantee then they would have to pay out the difference and if the game hadn't actually sold then Epic is just out more money and the Developer just doesnt care because they got paid.
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To make everyone think egs is more viable then it is in hope of making more money down the road by getting more market share. Also China has there hand in egs and it would be really easy for them to funnel state backed money into egs.
 
Snowdog said:
You need to stop assuming your opinion is anything other than a basically irrelevant fringe one.

News just came out that Borderlands 3 is cleaning up like never before on EGS, as did Metro Exodus. The extremely angry, "no steam, no buy" ranters, are an irrelevant fringe in the market and seem to be dwindling as time goes by.




First day and already double the all time concurrent record for PC users. So obviously healthy PC sales.

You can keep ranting, but you already lost.
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Peak concurrent players =/= not total sales. Again, cherrypicked stat, and the fact Randy - or anyone won't talk about total sales is telling.

BL2 - a game that came out 7 years ago when PC playerbase was way smaller, is a game that got popular over time. Its popularity on Steam over all those years, all the bundle sales, certainly helped fuel the hype and anticipation for a sequel.

So concurrent players of around 250k is kind of pathetic compared to the kind of numbers it would have done if 2K had made the game available on multiple stores. It would've been 7 figures. Especially when factoring the insane advertising budget - there wasn't a bus or billboard that didn't have BL3 on it at least in LA.
 
He literally says We got some cash money upfront from the deal so we can make the game we always wanted to with fewer compromises.

So yes they did get straight up cash for the deal. I don't blame them, I probably would have to.
 
DrDoU said:
where are the numbers if there so great? i dont see anything but a hot air bag flapping his gums.lets see the numbers,real numbers what are they afraid of. got no hate for egs
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While skepticism is well founded it should be noted that publishers rarely break down numbers by platform. They tend to lump everything together when talking milestones and make vague "doing well" "performing above average" "best launch on x platform" statements instead of committing to hard numbers. Once in a while you'll get "x percent of sales were on y platform" but that usually comes along with its own vague terms to obfuscate the total numbers. The game industry is ridiculously secretive with things they really don't need to be.
 
Will be interesting to see concurrent player count once it hits steam, if everyone hasn't forgot about it by then
 
DrDoU said:
where are the numbers if there so great? i dont see anything but a hot air bag flapping his gums.lets see the numbers,real numbers what are they afraid of. got no hate for egs
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I doubt they will be that far off given they are publicly touting its success, otherwise there are a bunch of stock manipulation issues.

M76 said:
To people who only pay once or twice a month any subscription no matter the price is wasted money.
If gaming is going subscription only then I'll quit gaming. It's as simple as that. And I bet I'm not alone.
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You and me both, if it ever happens we can grab a beer and lament the death of our gaming. Given the cash it would free up, i’ll Fly to you lol!
 
It sure seems like agreeing to make your game an EGS exclusive title on PC only benefits devs who don't expect their game to do well or aren't in a position to wait for sales to see the cashflow. All I can picture is this:
 
tunatime said:
How do we know they are not reporting the upfront guarantees that game xyz sold x copies in a week? It would be so easy for epic to pad the numbers the fact they make a big deal about how every big game on egs is breaking records should make everyone a little skeptical.
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:rolleyes:

Upfront guarantees don't play games. See a few posts up where they already doubled the all time concurrent user record for PC, on the first day.
 
odditory said:
Peak concurrent players =/= not total sales. Again, cherrypicked stat, and the fact Randy - or anyone won't talk about total sales is telling.

BL2 - a game that came out 7 years ago when PC playerbase was way smaller, is a game that got popular over time. Its popularity on Steam over all those years, all the bundle sales, certainly helped fuel the hype and anticipation for a sequel.

So concurrent players of around 250k is kind of pathetic compared to the kind of numbers it would have done if 2K had made the game available on multiple stores. It would've been 7 figures. Especially when factoring the insane advertising budget - there wasn't a bus or billboard that didn't have BL3 on it at least in LA.
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Here you go:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190923005321/en/
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...s_sold_over_5_million_copies_in_five_days.php

EDIT: And for reference, I hate EGS (I'm sure it wouldn't take long to document that in the forums). And you can count me amongst the waiters that will wait until it goes on sale on Steam a year and change from now.
Idealists can't really win. People are impatient and are generally quick to spend money on hype (hype just being excitement, regardless of whether the product is good or bad).
 
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