The Epic First Run programme allows developers of any size to claim 100% of revenue if they agree to make their game exclusive on the Epic Games Store for six months.
After the six months are up, the game will revert to the standard Epic Games Store revenue split of 88% for the developer and 12% for Epic Games.
Other posters seem to forget that competition is very important for this kind of thing.
Sure it’s annoying when Epic stops games releasing in other platforms, and especially how the epic launcher and it’s games do not support Linux.
But without competition, steam can continue with an insanely high cut of indie game sales, and that is NOT ok.
They’ll get 100% of my zero dollars that way.
I think they should double their offer and keep the duration adjustable:
Be one week exclusive, get 100% for two weeks,
Be one month exclusive, get 100% for two months.
Then, it becomes a game for the publisher. Launch on Epic and if there are no transactions, abort after one day. But if there are sales, hold on a bit to pocket the 100%.
Publishers will gamble and stay on Epic a bit longer to get better percentages from the strongest fans but they have to end exclusivity to capture the entire market.
I think exclusive on X should just not be a thing.
I think the stores should fight with pricing. If steam takes 30% and epic 12%, the price of the game needs to be cheaper by the difference in cut.
Imo the only thing that “should” be exclusive are first party titles. Besides that I completely agree
Guess I’ll get the game on sale
Steam has proton, Epic games does nkt even have a linux launcher, its obvious who I’m sticking with
Effectively no percent of the market uses Linux
100% of me uses Linux so epic can get fucked as far as I’m concerned
Linux users are the vegans of lemmy.
I’m sure all couple hundred of you are really excited about it but you are also no percent of the market
Shit I only have epic installed to get free games I forget to play because I never use the launcher. It’s just nothing to do with who is using Linux.
I don’t really give a crap what you think of linux users. But it’s not true that “no percent” uses it. Seems a little ironic that you say “nobody uses it” on one hand and also complain about the number of people who talk about it…
The large number of people talking bout it exists pretty much just on this social media.
Not sure why you are so personally invested, hence the vegan comment.
The point is no one really develops with Linux in mind because the consumer base is tiny
That percent of the market really changes for some indie titles who have noted a substantial amount of their purchases were from Steam Decks.
I mean, I’ve been able to get epic games working on my deck through the heroic launcher. I’ve still not given them one thin dime and I don’t intend to but I’ve got a fair sized collection of giveaway games that are nice to have around
Heroic Game Launcher works well enough for that. Although I do need to install MSVC shit thru Winetricks sometimes. Wish HGL did that automatically.
Man epic games store is actual industry aids. We don’t buy games on steam because we have no other choice. We buy them because it’s by far and large the best platform. I don’t want 10 different apps for different games. I want my collection in one spot. Epic games sucks. I’ve never given them a single cent and never will. I’ve claimed many a free game on there but the irony is I just buy them on sale through steam and never actually play them on epic. I want playtimes, achievements and the games themselves in one fucking spot. If steam becomes wildly anti consumer I would absolutely change my stance. But valve and it’s customers have a pretty good relationship imo.
I wish more companies were like Valve. They are following that old style of making a great product and/or providing a great service to make consumers happy to spend their money there. The only mixed feelings I have about spending money on steam is “do I really need more games when there’s a ton in my library that I still haven’t even installed let alone played?”
I hope they stay private and that Gabe has or finds an heir that follows his mindset rather than decides to go for a quick payout.
Even when those other companies embrace shitty business practices to make more money and it works for them, they are just setting the stage for a better company to come along and replace them.
Not to mention valve making a device that proliferates Linux game support more than anything else… ever.
Dude, we are so fucking boned if Gaben ever retires/dies/does not become GLaDOS. Valve is one of the only companies I can think of that hasn’t squandered goodwill completely and generally maintains a tight ship (aside from maybe Costco).
Can guarantee some random, unkempt, 38 year old asshole from the pharmaceutical industry will make Steam subscription only, throw it on the stock market, and have it tank due to some hedge fund mindset within 5 years if they hire a new CEO.
I mean that’s seems like a decent deal for developers but I’m not buying it until it goes Steam and GoG.
The first few months of a game release are absolutely critical, no matter the size of the studio. I won’t buy anything on Epic just out of principle, and I’m sure there are countless other people who share the mindset. A 100% share, vs a 70% one, is definitely appealing at first glance, but it’ll butcher your numbers for short-term gain
It’s that upfront money they give that’s the big thing for some of these devs I can’t blame them for taking that upfront influx of development capital.
Still not buying it from Epic, I hate console exclusivity, including Nintendo, and I’m not going to support it on PC.
Yeah same, but I also won’t touch anything that goes Epic Games exclusive even when it comes to Steam.
A game that sells 10,000 copies on Epic may sell 20,000 or more on Steam since Steam is so popular. If the game sold for $20 they would get $200,000 from Epic or $280,000 from Steam in that scenario.
That’s why Epic has to offer this. They NEED this to remain competitive.
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Or they could make a launcher that offers features that Steam lacks.
Or even just has the same features. The EGS launcher is hilariously bad. It’s barebones and intentionally difficult. It’s basically just a shell for their website API, when then raises the question of why they even have a launcher when it’s just a glorified browser.
And the lack of a shopping cart on their store is just plain aggravating. Maybe I don’t want to do a purchase for each individual game/DLC. But I’m sure they did a focus study somewhere, which found that having a shopping cart encourages people to second-guess their purchasing decisions. Like if you allow people to cart things, they may rethink some/all of those purchases once they get to the final checkout screen and see the grand total. So instead, they’ve opted to make the user experience worse, by forcing you to immediately check out for every single individual item.
Not that I want to defend EGS here, but I would like to point out that they actually have had a shopping cart for a bit now. Hilarious how long it took them to implement, but they do in fact have one now.
What’s even more hilarious is they have had one in the Unreal Engine store for much longer.
If you want to criticize the product you should at least stay up to date on what they offer because now we know you don’t know what you’re talking about :)
On the other side of the same coin, it proves that I don’t use the EGS because the launcher has historically been (and still continues to be, as far as I can tell) hilariously bad.
It’s got all functionalities required by a launcher, get over it.
By that logic fuck steam because it sucked when half life 2 launched
That’s an awfully generous ratio. I don’t recall all the specifics, but a year or so ago an indie game dev posted the sales stats of his game and left out the Epic Store numbers. When asked, he said that EGS accounted for less than 1% of his sales. Now, I’m not saying that’s going to be the case for all games, but considering EGS’s status as the “black hole of videogame marketing” I would say a 10-1 Steam/EGS ratio wouldn’t be surprising.
Tbh EGS discovery of games is shit. I feel that’s their largest issue.
It’s their largest issue and they literally just won’t fix it.. Ostensibly because they don’t “track user behavior”. Yeah sure Epic, go with that.
When it introduced Steam Direct, Valve prioritized the development of Steam features that helped users discover games they might be interested in, such as the Discovery Queue. The Epic Games Store will continue to get interface updates, but as a matter of principle, Allison says that Epic will not track user behavior and use it to algorithmically recommend games. Epic has said in the past that it’s more interested in supporting the game discovery that already happens outside of stores, such as on Twitch and YouTube.
There’s no winning with you guys is there?
“We don’t track you…”
“I don’t believe you, I’ll use that paycheck that I know for a fact is tracking me, fuck you!”
“Eh…”
Why the fuck do you care if I don’t like your favorite multibillion dollar corporation? Fuck I wish I could find someone who loves me as much as you love Epic Games Store of all things
It’s Tim. Why else would he be personally offended on behalf of epic when people say they don’t use it. He got offended I didn’t install the launcher and play the games despite having an account and at least claiming them on the browser.
I just like pissing you guys off because you’re acting like child
As a patient gamer, who hates enticements to get stuck in yet-another-walled garden, I refuse to go with Epic. The benevolent kingdom of steam never forces exclusivity deals, and just out of self interest i wont reward behavior that removes options from me.
I guess this means I’ll have to wait at least 6 months for some games to show up on steam
I’m ok with other ecosystems, if they treat people right, like GoG, I’m cool with GoG.
Some games are already like this. Borderlands stuff has been an Epic exclusive for a year ish in the past. I played on other platforms to avoid it. I don’t know if that’s still the case or if Borderlands 3 was the exception.
So if a game is stuck in Steam’s walled garden it’s ok, but if it’s stuck in Epic’s walled garden then it’s wrong?
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Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Valve went out of their way to bribe 2k into signing a contract to prevent them from releasing on other platforms. Like Xbox did with Tomb Raider preventing launch release on Sony.
Or do you not understand the distinction? At least play the “well it’s PC so what is the big deal over downloading another launcher” card if you are going to try and argue the exclusive angle.
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I’ve never understand why, as a consumer, I would care why something is exclusive.
Difference between knowing a game isn’t being prevented from coming to the PC like Yakuza and Persona 5 before they got PC ports versus knowing it will never happen, so not even entertaining the possibility like Zelda. Even with Epic exclusives its the difference between knowing that eventually the game will be available outside Epic versus being locked there forever. And it’s why I’ve decided to wait patiently for a Ghost of Tsushima release on the PC versus getting a PS5 or getting it for my PS4. Maybe you are a day 1 purchaser, but I am willing to wait if there is a chance of a game being released on my preferred platform. So its pretty important. Otherwise, I’d get a PS5 if I knew that no amount of waiting would result in PC ports.
Like I said before. You are so much better off saying you don’t care about exclusives if you are going to be an Epic apologist.
Maybe Gabe called up and asked nicely? Maybe someone at 2K used to work with Gabe when he was at Microsoft and thought they’d do him a favor? Maybe Valve paid? Does it matter why? Exclusives suck
You just seem to be falling back to hypotheticals to try to downplay third party exclusives. You say exclusives suck but then don’t bother putting in half the effort of actually calling out a verifiable recent actions of paying to remove the game from other platforms. Like the most infamous example being Metro Exodus that was set to release on Steam getting paid to pull it by Epic, and being the most lasting impression Epic left on consumers. It’s instead hypothetical 2k exclusives that bother you more than actual concrete current events.
Why would I care? The problem with exclusivity is that it’s anti-competitive and limits consumer choice. It doesn’t do that any less whether it’s exclusive because the developer was too lazy to offer the game somewhere else or because they were contractually obligated to be exclusive.
The leaps in logic you take to try and downplay paid third party exclusives as being as egregious as a dev or publisher not bothering to release on multiple platforms is an interesting one… But, I guess you have to do that if you are both claiming you hate exclusives, but then also trying to defend Epic and having to resort to hypotheticals.
Honestly, if you want to downplay criticisms towards Epic you are much better off saying you aren’t bothered by exclusives. I’m not sure why you are going through such a round about approach when you end up coming off as a fanboy with the leaps in logic and reliance on constant hypotheticals while downplaying or ignoring actual events that could hurt Epic.
Trust me. It’s way better to just say I like the Epic launcher being bare bones and I don’t care about exclusives. It’s just a launcher. This is by far the worst attempt to defend Epic I’ve seen. Bravo.
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I’ll have to wait at least 6 months for some games to show up on steam.
It raises a fun ethical question: Is piracy moral if you fully intend on buying the game at full price when it hits Steam in six months?
Spare me the “piracy is always moral” arguments; Even as a fellow pirate, the mental gymnastics to justify it get old quickly. Just admit that you won’t/can’t pay for something. So the question is whether or not the morality comes into play when you DO intend on buying the game as soon as it’s available on your preferred platform.
I mean it when I say im a patient gamer… ill wait and no play it
Patient gamer does mean actually be patient. If someone is playing a pirated game I would say that doesn’t count as patience with them not depriving themselves of anything.
Waiting 6 months means you will find out if the game was any good anyways
Found lot of the big titles that go to epic have been terribly unoptimized too at launch requiring fixes anyways, and I don’t want to pay more to be a beta tester. I don’t want to pay more for early access for a game that will be a better experience for customers who buy it much later.
As a gamer living in eastern Asia, Epic’s exclusives that could only be bought in certain countries due to payment processors pissed me off enough to boycott. I generally don’t touch any games that started as exclusives there, either. The couple of exceptions I have, I waited until they were a couple of years old and > 50% off on Steam or GoG
Say what you will about epic, but this is compelling as hell for Devs. Hopefully this puts more pressure on Steam to reduce their cut. Competition is good.
If you’re so against epic, have a little patience and wait until it comes to steam 6 months later. That’s what I’ll be doing. But don’t just mindlessly shit in epic because you (as a consumer) don’t like their business model intended to attract devs. You can dislike something while also recognising the good in it.
Fuck Epic and any store who tries to remove games from others.
There seems to be a lot of debate in the comments, that are disingenuous arguments.
I think the quality of the software is a factor for some people, but that’s not the main issue here.
Steam has always publicly stated their competition is piracy. They have to be more convenient than piracy to survive. And over steams lifetime I think they’ve demonstrated that’s their goal, yes they have DRM, but only to satisfy publishers, they’ve done everything they can to keep things as convenient as possible.
Epic, the company, has demonstrated their goal is money. And they’ve demonstrated an anti-consumer trend, the exclusivity deals are in great indicator of that. If epic became as popular as steam, they would make the experience awful, they would become the Disney of the game world.
So all of the arguments about
*launcher quality
*availability of DRM free games
*some publishers choosing to release on one platform
Are missing the mark, many people don’t want to financially support a market participant who will make their lives worse in the future.
If you don’t like valve, that’s fine, support a different distributor who makes the ecosystem better, like GoG.
I think you hit the nail in the head.
When I think about the whole missing shop cart thing, it wasn’t necessarily the shopping cart that bothered me (even if it DID cause terrible service when they released a paradox game with DLC).
It was the fact Tim himself and a posse came on Twitter to call me everything short of the R-slur just for wanting the shopping cart.
Yesterday it was shopping carts. Tomorrow it’s games working offline and with no mods. Tim made himself the villain over nothing, and deserves to fail before it’s about everything.
I love how when it’s epic it’s all about “I don’t like epic because they want a monopoly” but when it was only steam nobody talked about them having a monopoly lmao
Steam isn’t a monopoly.
Steam doesn’t force exclusivity. Developers are free to release a game on their own platform, on steam, on GOG all at the same time. Steam doesn’t even enforce price equality, developers could have their game on steam for 3X the price if they wanted. Use our website get the game for 66% off. Or use steam pay 3x the price. That’s an option
Steam is the benevolent dictator of the gaming world right now. They are benevolent so there’s no real need for a revolution. But they’re not forcing anybody to stay on the steam platform
Steam doesn’t force a monopoly because they’re already in the position of power. Epic “forces a monopoly” because they are the party out of power. I don’t care about either, but to assume any move by the company competing with the default game marketplace is “forcing a monopoly” is disingenuous at best. I’ll agree their client sucks compared to Steam, but honestly I don’t care. You can still launch your application through steam and get the overlay and everything. I care more about the health of the marketplace, and having a competitor can only be good for consumers and developers. This 100% return can make developers sell their games at a lower price and still make the same profit, as one example of how this is good.
I Don’t mean to be disingenuous. I never said either company was forcing a monopoly.
Steam has roughly 90% of the market. Everything else has scraps.
At what point does a market leader not become a de facto monopoly?
When the Majority of PC Gamers chant “no steam no buy” what exactly is Steam? Is it a monopoly? Is it a cult? It’s certainly not an equal competitor in the market. But just like reddit exposing this gets hit with down votes and “steam is not a monopoly cuz Gabe is based” propaganda.
What will Steam become once he dies btw? Will his successor keep the company private or go public and go through shareholder enshitification? Sold to Amazon?
I say all of this as a happy Steam Deck owner, a majority of my games on Steam and where I buy first over others save for real old Games (GOG). Honestly Steam was goddamn stagnant until EGS went online then Valve started updating the UI, made deals to get EA and Microsoft on board. Honestly EGS existing lit a fire under Valves ass. So I guess maybe not a monopoly as a true one wouldn’t even be bothered. But let’s not downplay Valves “big dick” in the market they can swing around all they want.
I’ve envisioned that possibility where Gabe dies of old age, and the company is sold to someone that will do anything for a buck. The bad news there is that any further purchases on Steam might be subject to whatever horrible practices they institute, but there’s no way they’d get away with locking off people’s existing libraries - and people would just shift over at that time to whatever other game stores make sense. And yes, other game stores do exist, even if they have smaller following.
Yeah, I think competition is always good and Steam should not have a monopoly, but Epic is certainly not a beneficial alternative.
I think you hit the nail in the head.
When I think about the whole missing shop cart thing, it wasn’t necessarily the shopping cart that bothered me (even if it DID cause terrible service when they released a paradox game with DLC).
It was the fact Tim himself and a posse came on Twitter to call me everything short of the R-slur just for wanting the shopping cart. It was a freaking war of ideology attrition over a motherfucking shopping cart, something the Unreal Engine store had too.
Yesterday it was shopping carts. Tomorrow it’s games working offline and with no mods. Tim made himself the villain over nothing, and deserves to fail before it’s about everything.
Developers, or their MBA publishers? I HIGHLY doubt developers beyond indie studios benefit from this.
Good for early access. Then time 1.0 for steam release.
Hades did that and was successful.
I actually never considered that possibility. Sort of genius in a way.
Yeah GalCiv4 and Sins of a Solar Empire II is doing it too. Get that Epic bag while in development and launch on steam. I would. That’s free money.
Actually a compelling deal for developers, wonder how many indie / AA developers will go for that instead of steam
I’ve heard that a lot of games have been a loss due to releasing on Epic as an early exclusive, as the first few months are critical.
Epic Exclusives do seem to have quieted down of late don’t they.
I noticed they seem to have pulled back in exclusives, I guess that’s why.
This seems like a worse deal than what Epic’s been offering though. Haven’t they been giving lump sum payments to developers to go exclusive with their store for a set time?
That was my understanding. I don’t know how Fortnite is doing, but I thought perhaps they are running out of money when they announced this new “thing”.
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I’d rather pay on Steam than get it for free on Epic tbh
Naw bro free is always better. Besides devs got paid anyways. This is a stupid take when cost of living is exponentially increasing.
I said I’d rather pay on Steam than to play it for free on Epic. I never said not buying it is not a possibility.
I also have a little thing called “disposable income”, so I can afford games if I really want to.
I’d expect EGS exclusivity to be the norm then. People who will buy the game eventually will buy the game eventually. Those are fixed sales since they’d get the same revenue from them either way. It’s just a breakdown of the sales lost from people refusing to buy the game ever outweighs the 30% you gain. Which at this point it seems like a ridiculous proposal since every game seems to launch to bigger and bigger numbers regardless of what bullshit the game pulls. People who wait for sales would barely matter since a steam sale is like a year after release and they weren’t making bank on them anyways.
But at face value, getting 70% of one Steam sale is only 10% more than you’d make off two copies sold at 100%. So one “never buy” looses you 2.3 sales of a game in revenue. Cool but any converted sale from someone who wouldve bought on Steam but can’t wait and buys on EGS offset that in favor of EGS. I guarantee more people will buy from EGS compared to never buying the game. 2.3x more? Yeah, for sure, lol. I’m sure someone could do some clown math for a break even point per 1 million sales at that point. But considering a bulk of a games purchase is at launch it’s just skewed so heavily toward EGS exclusivity makes more financial sense.
There’s also the percentage that just don’t buy on PC and buy on console instead, but again that’s the same cut you’d get just launching it on Steam
I’d love to see the actual sales numbers of recent, big titles on EGS vs Steam. I absolutely hate using EGS, and with the awesomely high game game density these days, I just don’t mind missing the few exclusives until they get on steam, and even then it is only if I remember them, since usually the hype has died out by then, and other games are out. I have no idea what percentage of users are similar to me.
They’ve done everything to encourage game developers, expecting consumers to follow. But none of this entices me to leave steam. I, like many, will gladly wait.
Monopolies are the best for the consumers, we all know that 👌
