Epic Games Store to Offer 100% of Revenue to Devs for 6 Months Exclusivity - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2023 / 6,355 Views
Epic Games has announced the Epic First Run program, which gives developers 100 percent of revenue for games that release exclusively on the Epic Games Store for six month. After six months participants will get 88 percent of revenue.
"Today, we’re introducing the Epic First Run program: an opt-in exclusivity program for third-party developers on the Epic Games Store," reads the announcement post from Epic Games.
"The new Epic First Run program gives participants the opportunity to boost their net revenue from user spending on eligible products from 88% to 100% in their first six months on the Epic Games Store. After their six-month run, participants will continue to benefit from Epic’s 88%/12% revenue split."
The Epic Games Store has over 230 million players and 68 million monthly active users. Games that are part of the Epic First Run program will be given a exclusive badge on the store, homepage placements, and dedicated collections.
The program is available to publishers and developers on the Epic Games Store for games that launch on or after October 16, 2023.
Read a Q&A on the Epic First Run program below:
What is the Epic First Run program?
Epic First Run is an opt-in exclusivity program that offers third-party developers 100% net revenue of user spending on eligible products in their first six months of exclusivity on the Epic Games Store. When the exclusivity period ends, the revenue share captured from user spending will revert to 88%/12%.
Who can participate?
This program is open to developers and publishers with registered Epic Games developer accounts and eligible products launching on or after October 16, 2023.
What products are eligible for the program?
A new release game or app which has not been previously released on another third-party PC store or included in a subscription service available on another third-party PC store.
Games or apps with a pre-existing exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store are not eligible for the program.
How do I get an Epic Developer account?
To create an account, go to the Developer Portal website at dev.epicgames.com/portal and follow the instructions to sign in then register your organization and products. For more information, please see our Developer Portal account creation guide.
Can I still release a product on my first-party store or website?
Yes. Products in the Epic First Run program can also be released simultaneously on publishers’ and developers’ own stores or launchers with direct sales, sale of an Epic digital redemption code, or integration with our keyless redemption program. Please note, keyless distribution will require technical work to implement for developer or publisher’s launcher and/or store.
Developers and publishers can also use the Epic Games Store’s keyless redemption program to sell on other stores including Green Man Gaming, Humble Store and several others. After the six-month exclusivity period ends, developers are welcome to release their products on other third-party stores, while continuing to benefit from Epic’s 88%12% revenue share.
How do I sign up for the Epic First Run program?
We will open registration through our self-publishing flow in the Epic Developer portal in October 2023. Check our information page for updates!
General questions about the program? Head over to the Epic Games Store Developer Community to connect with our staff and other developers on this topic and more. If you have a confidential question, please log in and start a private discussion with the topic Epic Games Store and the subject ‘Epic First Run'. If you’re already a partner, please reach out to your Epic Games Store account manager directly.
How do I release my product on the Epic Games Store?
It has never been easier to bring your games to the Epic Games Store. In March this year, we launched our self-service publishing tools to streamline the onboarding and release process. The tools allow developers to register, set up, test and distribute their games all directly through the Epic Developer Portal.
Read more about the benefits and requirements of self-publishing on the Epic Games Store in our self-publishing tools announce blog, and visit our distribution page to sign up. For more on the Store’s current player numbers and trends, visit our 2022 Year in Review.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
If this isn't an act of desperation, then idk what is. Sounds like EGS becoming profitable by 2027 is quickly becoming a fever dream.
Doesn't sound radically different from their previous actions to me: it's just another way to get exclusives and, via them, users. The service itself should be profitable with relatively little investment, as long as they don't burn money, so burning money seems more like an investment thing to me. They're trying to grow. That said, it's plausible that it's not going as well as Epic had hoped, but investment instead of desperation is still what I'd bet my money on at the moment.
Investment period has passed. Investment was at launch when Epic touted devs receive 88% of every game purchase, weekly free games, many exclusive games signed to the storefront, and promises of continuing to add more and more features to EGS to entice users. Instead of using the past nearly 5 years to build up the EGS to the point in can be in near feature parity to Steam and actually give users a reason to switch, Epic pulls this.
Still great for developers, no one can deny that, but Epic has practically abandoned EGS as far as building it up and making it worth using. Instead of trying to make the store better, they're still just trying to strong arm users into switching storefronts while continuing to offer a barebones experience.
Epic can invest as long as it deems it makes sense and in whatever ways it thinks make sense. They're still giving out free games and signing exclusivities, so clearly something it still going on. Also, there's still more than three years until 2027, and like I said, profitability probably isn't that hard for such a service. For now, this seems like it could be relatively well in line with what they've been doing for years. Could well be just a more formal process to encourage more publishers/developers to join the programme instead of having to negotiate a new deal with each publishers/developer.
That's fair, but until Epic decides to actually invest into making EGS better as they promised and make it worth using, all these exclusivity deals will only continue to piss consumers off.
Over the past year, Valve has done a complete overhaul of Steam and everyone's praised the features added and major improvements. That's how you keep users. Exclusivity will get users to make an initial switch but features will keep them there.
Yeah, I'm not exactly happy with Epic myself either. I also agree that the rate at which new features and other major improvements have been coming out seems rather lackluster, and... it's probably a major contributor to them probably not doing as well as they'd like. Considering the amount of money probably being poured into growing the service, it's actually somewhat baffling how little seems to have changed recently. I just went through a good portion of their changes this year, and it's mostly bug fixes and minor improvements.
Sounds like epic plans to be in the PC game store and launcher business for the long haul. There's no other reason they would do something like this. This is going to kill the vast majority of revenue they would get from these games, so they need to make that up with long term relationships.
That is a great incentive for devs.
And bad for customers who shop anywhere else.
This is a super great way to just get me to not want to buy games ever again tbh, because I already know EGS doesn't have me in mind, doesn't want to win me over and play nice, so by luring devs in like this, thinking only about money, money, money, there's less incentive to win me over on both the EGS side and dev side.
No one should really be doing exclusivity on an open platform.
I'm talking about it being bad for customers who aren't with Epic.
I want to buy my games on GoG/Steam, Epic getting exclusivity deals prevents that and even punishes me.
This is what strong-arming is, but I don't think you know when you're being strong-armed or not.
I'm more for a game being sold to everyone, not a few, or for simplicity, not everyone is like you Randy, in that they are just content with less or whatever is simple in life, some people like complication, or like me who wants more features and actual better prices across the damn board (which not many are doing these days due to price increases).
To me, EGS is free and accessible to all with a PC. So exclusivity with it do not cause a reduction to content access other than that which is integrity fueled by the user's own will to avoid the store.
You say you want complication, EGS titles can have every feature of Steam you only have to source them from third-party software or do some manual mod installation.
While I agree exclusivity is not something I want in general, here it's not a platform exclusivity that forces me to fork over $500 to have the right to purchase a title. If we cannot see such soft exclusivity practice from EGS as fair competition then there's no such thing that should be allowed everywhere (Console, TV-channel exclusive shows, Streaming service, etc..). I'm not going to lie I would absolutely love that to be the case, but it's utopic af.
That's because you're coming at this from a "everything's the same, so I don't see the issue" viewpoint, instead of where people prefer to shop from.
Just because you see them as being the same doesn't mean everyone else will, nor should they.
I want fair competition, not underhanded competition, where you have to buyout resources (like how Epic buys out tech to prevent Unity from advancing their own engine, or Epic buying out the entirety of Art station/Band Camp, two viable and important pieces for the games industry for new talent), to prevent your competitor from advancing or even moving at their own pace.
I feel like people have forgotten what fair competition is, and why it was originally the default ruleset for how to compete, because you are supposed to compete within the same playing field, abiding by the same rules, not trying to subvert them (like Epic is doing to get special treatment with Apple/Google, and trying to get anyone else on their level to get less treatment than they desire).
Features aren't something you just mod in, nor should the user have to mod them in, when Epic should be pouring money into their R&D dept to actually get the features GoG and Steam offer (which they didn't do for day or even year 1 of EGS operation, because they relied on dev split rev to carry them, not the consumer).
Exclusivity in general sucks, and people try to defend the concepts existence as if it's some necessary evil, when in reality it isn't, it's only a construct made by those who wish to stand out in a way that wasn't designed to be fair to begin with.
To better compete, you should really be aiming for what actually gets people to buy games on Steam, instead of paying to deny people the ability to buy games from Steam, because that's not actual competition Randy, that's strong-arming, because you are offering nothing of long-standing value.
I understand your point but it places EGS as a bad option as compared to a reality that doesn't exist in any industry, so it comes across as utopic with EGS as one entity being chosen to carry a message.
Epic buying techno to keep competition at bay, Nvidia did the same to AMD multiple times, and many other(if not nearly every other) entities also did so at some point. I'm not cautioning it, would rather that Nvidia used a different approach but it's still legal. And you also have to take into consideration entity's right to sell techno IPs and /or itself when trying to say another buying such should be avoided.
I feel like people have forgotten what fair competition is
I feel there never was a time when fair competition, as you allude to, actually existed. It's only utopic/what you would like competition to be, yet I'm fully with you on this, it would just never happen though.
Features aren't something you just mod in
I may have expressed myself poorly here, I was not referring to modding EGS but where Steam proposes party chat, you can use Discord on the side with EGS. Where Steam proposes to install mods for you, you can download and install them manually for the title you have through EGS.
Exclusivity in general sucks
Amen. Yet Steam benefits from de facto exclusivity because many publishers/devs simply ignore alternatives due to insufficient active userbase. If you want to prevent a company from attracting customers by creating more favorable conditions for them then it should also apply to Steam and what you want is not to get EGS to play only by Steam ruleset(which of course would do nothing else than to secure Steam in its dominant position) but to remove devs and publishers' ability to choose where they want to sell their game and have them publish everywhere all the time.
To better compete, you should really be aiming for what actually gets people to buy games on Steam, instead of paying to deny people the ability to buy games from Steam, because that's not actual competition Randy, that's strong-arming, because you are offering nothing of long-standing value.
I understand your position but it places an immense capacity on an established entity to fend off potential competitors by simply leveraging their headstart and the more headstart the entity has the more improbable and costly it will be, maybe even literally impossible, for anyone wanting a part of the market. Then your position helped to create monopolistic practice in the market. On the other hand, If ever EGS succeeded in getting a decent userbase, be that by using practices you find unethical (yet are perfectly accepted in every industry they are being used), many more devs can choose to sell on EGS by default. Maybe even overlook Steam as EGS provides more revenue to them. Then Steam can be forced to react and decrease its margin themselves. That's what competition is and the benefits it brings.
That's because at this current time, EGS is a bad option, simply because of how barebones it is, how it doesn't really and properly advertise on it's main screen the way Steam does, and they don't even fit the bill for advertisements, despite paying out for exclusivity, this is why people refer to Epic as the "blackhole" for marketing/visibility on PC (Did you know there are still ppl on PC that to this day, are still not aware that the KH collection is on PC, exclusively on EGS?).
There is no utopic message EGS is trying to carry though?. You make it sound like Epic is some saviour to an industry that was already going well without it beforehand.
[b]I feel like people have forgotten what fair competition is[/b]
It doesn't matter if it's legal, it's only made legal because of buying out votes, you should know that the legal system isn't fully pure and non corrupted. You shouldn't be purely running your business on preventing your competition from even existing, instead you should focus on what makes your company good.
Fair competition exists, only within certain places and venues that enforce strict rules (like a running race, or a chess competition for example). It's just that there are a number of people out there running the businesses and warping the game of life to make it so anti-competitive behaviour is used up front over playing fair (you see this in govs and companies alike).
[b]Features aren't something you just mod in[/b]
yes but you shouldn't have to use a side app because EG couldn't be arsed to make their own. This is exactly why people are getting freebies on EGS, then heading straight to Steam forums with their issues on the games they got over on EGS, which in turn causes ppl like me to tell them to go and use EGS forums (which they clearly don't have, and Steam is not the place for EGS related issues, this is just how it is).
[b]Exclusivity in general sucks[/b]
Steam just provides devs with the tools and a space to setup with, they admitted this when games were exclusive to EGS for their times, to a point where Valve said "yeah, keep your game wishlist on and your store page available and we'll welcome you back".
it is the devs choice that they want to sell on Steam, whilst with Epic, it's mostly down to Epic paying devs to ignore Steam, and that's where the core difference shows up, and people seem to think Valve is paying literally every dev to be exclusive, and they admitted before that they don't, that would cost untold millions to do all of that per game, per release schedule.
Devs just choose Steam because people know Steam, they use Steam, they love Steam, Steam is where they have their games at, and who doesn't want to keep their games in a tidy spot?.
[b]To better compete[/b]
Well their headstart wasn't all that great tbh, and it's now been 3 1/2 years now and they are still running the same course and they not do not expect to be profitable till 2027 (was originally 2025).
You now have people on Twitter and reddit actually complaining that EG isn't giving away a game they specifically want for free, or dunking on EG for giving away a few freebies that were either the same freebies last month or "bad" ones, and that in turn has caused people to now expect nothing but free games from EG, which in turn has created a bad precedent for customers to have, and that was entirely EG's fault for setting that up.
No, see, I think you don't mind EGS becoming the new big dog and you don't mind Steam being forced to play by EG's rules, but my dude, that's honestly vile, like a really bad way to look at competition, because that's stooping to a new level of low.
I get that you don't mind consoles doing it, because that's literally what they started with, but on PC, no, that's honestly a low blow and dirty, I don't really care if it's accepted by any market. I do not want to see Steam stooping to EG's level and buying hundreds of exclusives, because you think that's the norm, it really isn't on PC, it's beyond disgusting to see that cultured with a happy smile on one's face.
I get that you think you see my points, but I can't shake off the really non chill vibes you're giving me with how good you think it is for Epic to become top dog one day and forcing Steam to play entirely by Epic's rules.
Epic shouldn't be leading or ruling any market ever. Their CEO showed his hand. he doesn't care about Linux at all, bought a company that worked with Valve on Linux to prevent them going any further, then made a really bad faith excuse to why Linux isn't important and citing it as a "passport issue".
Also the same CEO that tried to rally children to scream and shout against Apple, like that is super vile, creepy and borderline disgusting to see how he thinks. This is the same CEO that mocked PC and left to work with MS.
Also Epic has recently killed off the UT franchise over on Steam and their own store, so yeah..."competition".
Like I said I agree with most of your point as far as the sentiment goes but the fact is paying for exclusivity is a part of every industry .
There is no utopic message EGS is trying to carry though?. You make it sound like Epic is some saviour to an industry that was already going well without it beforehand.
That's not what I'm saying at all and don't view EGS as anything other than an option which is the right to exist and enact any policies that are legal and used in every market they can be used in. By utopic message, I referred to users' preference that such practice should not be used and chose to convey their messaging by singling out an actor while ignoring how widespread such policy actually is.
It doesn't matter if it's legal, it's only made legal because of buying out votes, you should know that the legal system isn't fully pure and non corrupted. You shouldn't be purely running your business on preventing your competition from even existing, instead you should focus on what makes your company good.
You refer to generalist corruption and entails that it is specifically used in this case and by Epic while not providing any proof to that effect.
The same goes for for your anti-monopolistic view. while I fully agree to your statement it does not apply here whatsoever. This change of policy by EGS will not provide any meaningful shift and competition will be perfectly able to react and adjust.
No, see, I think you don't mind EGS becoming the new big dog and you don't mind Steam being forced to play by EG's rules, but my dude, that's honestly vile, like a really bad way to look at competition, because that's stooping to a new level of low.
I mind that any entity plays by what's legal and what's not legal, other than that it's just user wishful thinking that a company ruleset should become standard to any other. The actual ruleset is provided by the legal framework and nothing else. Is the legal framework perfect, No that's why I agree with you on sentiment, but that's the thing the legal framework should be adjusted first rather than trying to tie an entity to on-the-fly made-up rules.
Yes, but that doesn't make it good nor fair, and should ideally be frowned upon, because it means you do not trust nor fight on your own merits.
What policy are you talking about in terms of them "carrying this message through"?.
I'm sorry but when did I need to apply proof to something that in generally widespread?. Do you think every gov is good by default or something, every corp as well?.
By monopolistic, I was talking about later on down the line, not this current policy with the 6 month exclusivity, I feel like we're shifting posts here, let's not do that please.
" On the other hand, If ever EGS succeeded in getting a decent userbase, be that by using practices you find unethical (yet are perfectly accepted in every industry they are being used), many more devs can choose to sell on EGS by default. Maybe even overlook Steam as EGS provides more revenue to them. Then Steam can be forced to react and decrease its margin themselves. That's what competition is and the benefits it"
This was what I was focusing on with my last paragraph response, not the 6 month deal in the article.
I'm sorry but when did I need to apply proof to something that in generally widespread?. Always, it's logical fallacy to refer to widespread opinion "argumentum ad populum".
Do you think every gov is good by default or something, every corp as well?.
No, but a blanket corruption statement ain't gonna cut it, There's no one corruption encompassing everything and you will have to show how actual corruption schemes affect the current condition in PC store market for me to attribute any bit of credence to this. I'm not saying it's not the case just won't believe it for the sake of popular opinion. Especially when context enabling EGS to adopt such policy is not allowed by a single country but by all of them. meaning any corruption schemes to make it happen would have to be worldwide or at least all main markets (US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia, China, Japan. etc...).
By monopolistic, I was talking about later on down the line, not this current policy with the 6 month exclusivity, I feel like we're shifting posts here, let's not do that please. Then later policy should be judged by the later context in which they happen. doing so prior to this only leads to slippery slope arguments that X will happen.
Also from a prior post (was actually editing my prior post but since you replied first I will do so here):
I get that you think you see my points, but I can't shake off the really non chill vibes you're giving me with how good you think it is for Epic to become top dog one day and forcing Steam to play entirely by Epic's rules.
Don't get me wrong I'm not advocating for anyone to get "top dog" over another nor I'm advocating for the status quo with the current "top dog". But the thing is context is provided by a mostly free market and so policies are ever-evolving, If a policy is able to provide a shift in competition then the question should be whether is competition able to adjust or not, only if the latter happens or deemed highly probable you get yourself in an anticompetitive situation warranting outside intervention.
I'm not talking about "one corruption encompassing everything" though?. I don't get where you are pulling this from, thus I am wondering why you think I need to post proof, when you already know it exists within the system (just look at the FTC for example).
I wouldn't even say it's a popular opinion, because if it truly was, something would actually be done about it.
You're also asking for proof for under the table deals, and let's be super real here, you're never getting any of that from anyone, hence why we notice the vibes of it.
Why have we suddenly shifted from talking about later on market leader talk to policy, policy, policy?.
I feel like we're veering off track here and going on about points that aren't really in tandem with what was being discussed beforehand.
I feel like we've already slipped down a slope, where it's come down to "confusion tactics", like how we're suddenly talking about "legal policy", like no offence Randy, but you're not a lawyer, and nor am I, but I don't think we should shift this into "legal policy" talks about future top dogs or underhanded dealings.
I'm not talking about "one corruption encompassing everything" though?. I don't get where you are pulling this from, thus I am wondering why you think I need to post proof, when you already know it exists within the system (just look at the FTC for example).
You're using a blanket statement that corruption exists and suggest that it must apply by default here. It may be but that's nothing more than assumptions without anything to back it up.
You're also asking for proof for under the table deals, and let's be super real here, you're never getting any of that from anyone, hence why we notice the vibes of it.
If you're making a claim, present it as factual, You have to have better info than simply no one can know this so I must be right. This whole corruption thing has gone long enough it's not constructive and without basis.
Why have we suddenly shifted from talking about later on market leader talk to policy, policy, policy?.
I feel like we're veering off track here and going on about points that aren't really in tandem with what was being discussed beforehand.
By policy, I mean general strategy used by actors, not legal framework which I refer to as legal framework.
Policies are just a part of what makes an actor an actual market leader, not to mention policies are implied by the very article we're discussing and what triggered the discussion in place (shifting to offer a 100% cut for 6 months exclusivity is a policy), there's no shift to the discussion and no veering.
Like no offence Randy, but you're not a lawyer, and nor am I, but I don't think we should shift this into "legal policy" talks about future top dogs or underhanded dealings.
As mentioned previously, I was mostly referring to actor policies, not legal ones. No offense taken, I'm no lawyer, yet this is no excuse for me to take every claim as factual only because they're presented as such. If you want to convince me then make me understand, do not try to make me believe.
No, I'm saying that it exists, and that there are cases where it is overlooked or excused (like how people excuse Nestle for all the wrong they do, because they make products some folks like).
You are asking for something that isn't possible to just ask a head official what deals went down under the table, and you know full well you cannot break NDA's either.
What you are saying is that if it fits your view, it has to be "fine", if it doesn't, it needs to be shot down and absolute proof needs to be presented. You are presenting the same logic, because if I cannot provide proof via breaking NDA's and rifling through documents that aren't mine, then "you must be right", and also by this logic it "cancels each other out", and I refuse to let it reach that state, because after this long back and forth, I realise that's what you are after, because you don't really care, you're already happy with what is currently going on, in the world and the games industry.
Then say general strategy, not "policy", because I feel like you're using words in the wrong manner in order to come off as an intellectual in law firm (which we have established you are not).
Yes we are veering, because I was trying to talk about a specific point near the end of your paragraph and you suddenly looped us all the way back to "policy" talk, and "general strategy".
The main reason I even began talking about this with you, is because you see no difference, you don't really care either way who becomes what, but I do, because I game on the platform, I buy on it, I mod on it, it is important TO ME, in what happens in the market.
You say you "understand", but I don't think you do, because you already put forth that you see them as the same, thus I should too, because you are arguing semantics about "policy, general strategy"£ and all this kerfuffle to drag out a topic that should have ended the other day.
I will end it here on this note though:
When I said I wanted competition, I wanted it the way GoG was doing it, not the way consoles are doing it, because the way consoles are doing it means strong-arming, and I detest the use of that strategy.
The usage of this "strategy", means that people who buy on Steam/GoG are put to the back burner, their money is thus not important for those 6 months, which in turn can lead to people like myself, not buying those products 6 months later ( I know I won't, because that is more principle to not support the anti-competitive practice for the customer, not the dev, just to make that perfectly clear).
No, I'm saying that it exists, and that there are cases where it is overlooked or excused (like how people excuse Nestle for all the wrong they do, because they make products some folks like).
If you didn't bring corruption to entail that Epic was benefitting from it then it serve no purpose here. If there was something intended to veer the conversation and actualy did that was it.
You are asking for something that isn't possible to just ask a head official what deals went down under the table, and you know full well you cannot break NDA's either.
I thought you made a claim that Epic was directly benefitting from corruption. I wasn't asking you to provide anything other than simply backing up the claim I thought you made.
What you are saying is that if it fits your view, it has to be "fine", if it doesn't, it needs to be shot down and absolute proof needs to be presented.
I did not portray any actor as benevolent or evil, this whole conversation started because you portrayed Epic as an entity that doesn't have me in mind, doesn't want to win me over and play nice, so by luring devs in like this And I wanted to know if this was supported by fact and everyone should avoid EGS or simply a preference of how you would like an actor to act and how what you consider ethical, you have since confirmed it's the later.
You are presenting the same logic, because if I cannot provide proof via breaking NDA's and rifling through documents that aren't mine, then "you must be right"
I did not make a claim on any actor, so I don't consider myself as right or wrong. Nor did I consider you to be right or wrong. I just wanted to know if your sentiment toward EGS was fueled by a logical conclusion or personal beliefs.
and also by this logic it "cancels each other out", and I refuse to let it reach that state, because after this long back and forth, I realise that's what you are after, because you don't really care, you're already happy with what is currently going on, in the world and the games industry.
There already have been a number of times you have tried to portray me as something in this conversation. You missed the mark every time and this is no exception.
Then say general strategy, not "policy", because I feel like you're using words in the wrong manner in order to come off as an intellectual in law firm (which we have established you are not).
Policy is perfectly suited to the situation. Policy: *a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual:. a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes*. This is exactly the way I intended to use the word, you just misattribute its use where I was using it to describe action taken/service offered by by actors.
Yes we are veering, because I was trying to talk about a specific point near the end of your paragraph and you suddenly looped us all the way back to "policy" talk, and "general strategy".
It's only veering because you misattributed my words, I have since pricised what I meant but you keep focusing on the wrong interpretation. The paragraph you're referring to "On the other hand, If ever EGS succeeded in getting a decent userbase, be that by using practices you find unethical[...]" practices and policies are synonyms here.
The main reason I even began talking about this with you, is because you see no difference, you don't really care either way who becomes what, but I do, because I game on the platform, I buy on it, I mod on it, it is important TO ME, in what happens in the market.
You again try to portray me as something and miss the mark, I see differences and I care for the market. But differences are just that "difference", it does not mean good or bad and I wanted to know why you attribute them as bad.
You say you "understand", but I don't think you do, because you already put forth that you see them as the same, thus I should too, because you are arguing semantics about "policy, general strategy"£ and all this kerfuffle to drag out a topic that should have ended the other day.
Still missing the mark completely, They are not the same, they are 2 different options. The conversation would have ended after 1 to two exchanges but you keep trying to paint a brush on me with every reply so I felt I should get the record straight:
not everyone is like you Randy, in that they are just content with less or whatever is simple in life, some people like complication
That's because you're coming at this from a "everything's the same, so I don't see the issue" viewpoint
You make it sound like Epic is some saviour to an industry that was already going well without it beforehand
I think you don't mind EGS becoming the new big dog and you don't mind Steam being forced to play by EG's rules
I get that you don't mind consoles
with how good you think it is for Epic to become top dog one day and forcing Steam to play entirely by Epic's rules.
You have been incorrect with staggering consistency in each of them so a substantial part of my reply is to get things straight on how I'm being painted.
When I said I wanted competition, I wanted it the way GoG was doing it, not the way consoles are doing it, because the way consoles are doing it means strong-arming, and I detest the use of that strategy.
Yes, that's what transpired during all our conversations, and I agree with you on much of those. I said multiple times in the forums and article that I would like nothing more than an equivalent of United States v. Paramount Pictures in the video game industry which would go a great lengths to prevent many forms of exclusivity.
The usage of this "strategy", means that people who buy on Steam/GoG are put to the back burner, their money is thus not important for those 6 months, which in turn can lead to people like myself, not buying those products 6 months later ( I know I won't, because that is more principle to not support the anti-competitive practice for the customer, not the dev, just to make that perfectly clear).
I really don't think it would have much of an impact and that many devs will make use of this new policy, AAA won't bother only having an extra 12% EGS revenue and ignore Steam with a vastly superior userbase. AA and indie maybe but even then ignoring Steam will be unjustified in most cases. The only ones where I can truly see benefits from this are the ones already benefitting from EGS's less populated library for increased visibility as compared to Steam. So the less popular, more niche indie.
Also, and this is my opinion, who am I to deny a dev the EGS option because I want the game on Steam, they have the right to choose whether or not to make use of it based on their own opinions and calculations. I may view the practice of exclusivity as wrong yet, with how widespread it is in this industry and so many others, my view can only be judged as utopic and so won't hold it against any actor from using such.
Still at it with the exclusivity BS, huh? Well, I'm still sticking with anything other than EGS.
How many devs are going to take this? The stigma of being exclusive on PC, even if it is limited exclusivity, may not be worth it in the long run.
A lot of devs took deals when EGS initially launched. Metro Exodus and Outer Worlds I remember especially stinged. But many have realized EGS is not a good deal to have exclusivity. So much so that it's gotten to the point where even Ubisoft is returning to Steam.
So this is a desperation move for sure. Epic has given up on trying to compete with Steam. It's still a barebones storefront with sooooooo many missing features despite quickly coming up on its 5th anniversary.
It's like this article I was reading awhile back when people started trying to release twitter alternatives after Elon Musk purchased the company. This tech guy was interviewed and basically said it's not enough to just release an app like twitter and expect people to mass move because they don't like the new twitter. You have to bring something new to the table to really motivate people to migrate. It's the same situation here. FB had some success because they made it so easy to move over but even that has kind of died out already.
There's some truth to this but to me choosing to buy on Steam vs. EGS is more akin to choosing between Walmart or Best Buy for some product. I'll choose the closest as long as the price is the same.
With Steam vs. EGS, the proximity is measured with the familiarity with the store which makes Steam win by default.
Most casual gamers know only Steam because that's what people showed them 15 years ago and it works well enough they'll never seek an alternative and never even ask themselves if an alternative actually exists and so don't know EGS even exists.
Even for the enthusiast gamer, why bother buying a game on EGS when Steam has become the default and pricing strategy are mostly the same? Most gamers don't keep in mind that more money goes to the devs with EGS and/or probably don't care. For me, I only care when the title is at the same price yet I never buy a full-priced game anymore and Steam often gets price cuts first so use EGS mostly for the free games, even though I barely used Steam-added features. I think I only bought less than 10 titles on EGS and mostly during promotional campaigns where they gave back $5-10 in gift cards, still, I have a library of like 150 titles on it.
Maybe it would have been better for EGS to charge the classic 30% cut but then refund up to 50% of that cut in gift cards to the gamer based on achievements earned while playing titles. That way it would have driven probably more gamers to it and driven more long-term engagement, the lack of features would be more easily forgiven
It won't be, because people are still tired of it.
Look at that Saints Row reboot for example, go look at the Steam forums page for SR Reboot, no one likes the game or wants to buy it, and they are releasing their game a year later while new games like Starfield/Armored Core come out, they are basically going to get slaughtered in sales due to their previous EGS deal.
All this deal does is pit me more against devs caring about just money and only money, not their product standing on it's own two legs, it's own merits and devs having confidence in their product and customers.
What? Thats just silly.
I was wondering if they'd also specify that it can't be in a subscription service during the 6 months, and it can't.
Great to see Epic be so competitive.
Steam had it easy all these years. Now they must definitely be feeling the heat.
Competition is always good for the industry.
For people calling this a desperate move, this is just business to gain market share.
By that logic, Xbox putting all of 1st party and select 3rd party games day 1 on sub service, offering 1$ deals to gamepass etc should also considered desperate.
At the end of the day every company wants to be the market leader and will do what ever is required to get there.
Maybe they've had it easy because they were the only ones to stick around this long enough and trying to actually do something that no one else bothered to do? (besides GoG).
Steam won't be feeling any heat, because they'll know this is a move of desperation, and it isn't going to magically cause Valve to lower their cut to nothing or to 88% either.
Epic as a market leader would make for such a dark age in PC gaming, I really wouldn't wish that on anyone who actually knows their history.
Their storefront has always been pretty successful, So it wasn't hard for them to stick around.
Its not like they've had to sell hardware at a loss to make up on software sales.
Them taking the same cut (30%) as console manufacturers was never fair to begin with.
Besides they've already felt the heat when epic announced 88% split.
They reacted by reducing their cut to 25% (at 10 million) and 20% (at 50 million).
I do not wish epic to be the market leader. I am just pointing out that there will more competition in the PC space which will push Steam to do better.
Steam is doing better. Over the past year and a half, Valve has completely overhauled Steam in nearly every possible way and only made it better. As for Epic, they've continued their exclusivity BS while offering nothing else to give users a reason to switch xD This isn't how you do competition in the PC space.
Even GOG carved out their own part of the market with a huge library of older games on top of the DRM-free requirement. They've even been adding newer titles in recent years. Their launcher is even incredibly useful by merging all other launchers into one.
Can't say anything positive about what Epic does with EGS. Barebones experience full of broken promises after 5 years, and the only thing they've been doing is strongarming users into switching. Like I said in a previous comment, exclusivity will get users to make an initial switch, but features will keep them there.
I bet you my soul that someone on here is going to chalk anything Valve does ever, entirely onto Epic existing, completely ignoring what Valve has done before, what it plans to do, or what is currently being worked on, it's all going to get automatically chalked up and full credited to Epic, because "competition".
I'm glad you can see that Epic hasn't changed their tune in the past 3 and a half yrs, while some here seem to think that's good business, when it clearly isn't, not on an open platform, especially against a storefront that's garnered enough users and an insanely large chunk of mindshare.
What really gets me though, is that Valve spent the past 2 decades working out what worked and what didn't work, and of course, the industry is able to look back on all the notes Valve left behind, but Epic?, nah, Epic doesn't have time to read all those notes, to do all the good things Valve did and pour all that money into R&D.
Instead they've wasted nearly 4 years playing the console exclusivity game, but on an open platform with nothing to show.
Meanwhile Valve has managed to churn out:
A gamepad
An OS
A portable gaming device
VR headset
Streaming device
All Epic has done is buy up tech to tape exclusively to their engine (that no other engine out there can use, without paying Epic a cut or just not getting access at all), while also buying out venues like Art Station and bandcamp to siphon concepts and ideas from for whatever game can be tossed out.
No one asked for Art station or Bandcamp to be bought out, and hell, even Bandcamp went so far as to create their own union, because they weren't at all happy with how Epic was running things.
But hey, people on here keep telling me "competition is good" with a crooked smile on their face, as if they know what's better for me and everyone else.
It wasn't at the start.
Do you not remember the pushback they got for requiring you to sign up with a Steam account just to play games like TF2 and HL2?.
There was also the growing pain years, where the client was unresponsive, lacked the features it has today, the flash sales eventually being done away with (which people and myself still miss).
They were literally the only ones there to pick up the pieces, while Epic left the platform entirely to go work with MS, while also mocking the platform they abandoned with shit like "you won't find games like gears on PC, but maybe you'll find something like it on Facebook gaming".
Valve are selling hardware though?. They sold the Steam gamepads, which didn't sell all that well, then they tried Steam machines, but they fumbled that up royally due to letting third parties take full control over pricing and parts used for each machine (Valve only did the OS at the time), and now they have their own Steam Deck device.
Really no one should be taking that kind of cut, and I find it weird how people ultra specifically single only Valve out of everyone else in the entire games industry, like a well timed chime in when Timmy started bitching about the cut (he also bitched about MS's cut before mind you, as well as calling MS a monopoly, but I don't see ppl parroting that these days).
I dunno man, I feel like you wouldn't mind, because you don't seem to be bringing up any pitfalls, unless it's Valve, so I guess it wouldn't make any difference in the world if Steam just died tomorrow and Epic took over, would it?.
There has been a chance for competition for years, yet no one seems to want to compete for the customer to the fullest extent, in away that isn't treating them like kids with candy (you know, the freebies?).
Steam has been doing better before they came along, so I just wanna nip that in the bud (seen people already parroting "seeeeee, Epic made Valve bttur!!", completely ignoring Valve's previous plans and design flow, y'know Valve time).
I will be pretty surprised if the impact of this is any more than slight. Going from 88% to 100% isn't that big a deal and still won't be worth the loss in sales.
Good for devs, though i still won't install EGS, hope they keep burning money.
EGS needs to earn consumers. Instead of making EGS better to give consumers a reason to switch, after nearly 5 years and still a barebones storefront experience, they're still on the strong arming users into switching BS. They don't deserve anyone's business till they make the storefront better as they promised when EGS first launched.
Yeah and this is what gets me.
You would think after all this time they would have changed their tune and at least try somewhat hard to earn their customers, but nope, still the same Epic from the early 00's, that mocked customers when they left the platform and only came because because money.
All they know is strong arming tactics, because they didn't stick around back in the day with the PC platform to actually wonder how it ticks, what makes for good customer gains, but instead they just took EA's "on the House" program for freebies, and console exclusivity contracts from the big 3. They haven't actually learned anything on their own, that everyone else is already doing in a bad way anyway.
It's like watching a child that refuses to admit they were wrong and doesn't want to learn to do better.
So they've given up on paying for exclusives themselves and are instead just making customers pay directly for them instead?
This is aimed primarily at Ubisoft. They are the only ones making AAA games exclusive to their launcher.
That's pretty good for those that believe they can sell well on Epic.
Exclusivity often draws interest from certain audiences.
However, when Epic only takes 10% in the first place, it's a bit of a lukewarm bonus.
This is probably going to get a lot of attention, particularly from smaller companies where that extra margin can help fund their next project.
Bigger devs, like EA which have recently begun to move back to Steam from their own storefronts, will weigh it off from the lost revenue from a less popular storefront.
That's desperate, financially stupid, and anti-competitive.
Sounds more like extremely competitive to me.
As for it being desperate or financially stupid, that depends on how Epic views the business in the long term.
Competitive for developers but not consumers.
This definitely comes off as a desperate bet. The big benefit is bringing more users to EGS, but it’s a gamble that they might be willing to take because of how little engagement the storefront has outside of Fortnite players. If exclusivity was going to work, it would’ve worked from the start. That’s all Epic did for the first couple years was sign exclusivity. Didn’t pan out very well.
This isn't going to win me over though?.
if anything it's going to piss me off and pit me against devs even more.
People in gaming culture really need to drop the "poor" devs angle, because the devs don't really care about the "poor customer" angle when it comes to daily life, healthcare or hell, job status, so why sacrifice all of your own wants and desires for a group that clearly doesn't give a crap about what you want?.
I'd feel sorry if a dev passed away from cancer, but apart from that, I know a dev is out there to make a game for me to buy, and going exclusive is not how you get me to buy.
If all you are going to do is hardcore focus on a small group that absolutely loves and lives their entire life around exclusivity, then you are simply ignoring the rest that don't like it, and someone else is going to serve them instead and then you straight up lose, and no, that's not competition, that's being stupid and ignorant, there's a huge difference.
Holy shit is that an act of desperation or what.
Like, god damn I have never seen a publisher stoop so low as to NOT MAKE ANY MONEY, only selling games on their store with this kind of deal.
This isn't how you win customers over Timmy, btw.... Maybe make a good store with more features, heck new ones , and maybe a handheld or something, anything that isn't the current shithole of a state that EGS is still stuck in the past 3 and ahalf years.
Is this for PC store exclusivity only? The way this reads, I can't tell whether the games are allowed to launch on console during that period or not. If they're allowed to launch on console, I can see where this would possibly bring a lot of games to the Epic store before Steam.
Well they've done deals before in the past that landed them first dibs on the game before console releases, so it could very well happen with these. Also a lot of indie based games are created on PC first, so chances are high those will also be released on PC first, so if they take the EGS deal, they will only be found there until a console release comes later.
