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$130m Loss Expected for Epic Games Store Exclusives in First Wave

Fare thee well

Neophyte
I think they planned on running at a loss for those games, unless they are just saving face?

I have no stake in any one platform tbh. I used to be angry about Epic, but I think I was being somewhat irrational. The only exclusive they got that mildly irritated me was mechwarrior, but it's mostly because I thought the modding experience would be better on steam. Monopolies and large corporate battles.... why root for any megacorp? Idk. I'll take 10 services if I can just keep playing games.

I will admit that steam is my largest library so obviously I want whatever helps me keep my library available longer. Fortunately I don't think it's going anywhere for a long time.
 
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kingfey

Banned
Do you have any idea how much mass-reach advertisement costs nowadays? An appearance in Fortnite is an event that gets you seen by millions of excitable people with easy access to cash. It's not quite "Superbowl halftime ad" kind of powerful, but it's damn close - and that costs hundreds of thousands to millions per second. So even if an actor or performer would normally be paid to do an appearance, it's a really good question who's paying who in these cases.


wBL77c9.png
Are you series? Am I reading this correctly?
Fortnite? Being ads? An event? What smoke is this shit? I honestly wants some of the smoke you guys are smoking.
Fornite before all is a game. From a nobody company. They aren't entertainment company. They are a gaming company. They have to pay money to these guys. Epic has to spend millions of dollars to get these guys in to their game.
Disney won't pay any fucking dime to epic, to advertise their games. Warner bros won't do the same. The same Sony who charged epic for cross-platform, won't pay any dime to put Kratos in to fortnite. LeBron won't pay epic a dime, to put his face on fortnite.

Please learn how business is conducted first.
 

kingfey

Banned
Some of the most prolific third party game publishers, such as Ubisoft and 2K, have already struck either timed or as of this moment still exclusive deals with Epic for PC digital distribution. One still cannot purchase The Division 2 on Steam, for example. Borderlands 3 had a about a year of exclusivity on EGS. And so on.
These wont do any much. The main reason why Playstation and steam are dominant is the little guys. Most people ignore tiny devs.
How many small Japanese devs put their games on xbox? How many small publishers would put their game on epic?

These kind of stuff, is where the main revenue is coming from. 100 small devs game is equal 1 ubisoft game. And both Playstation and steam has them.

Its main ready why xbox is doing ID xbox. To attract those small publishers. 100 of these can make 10m copies game, per 100k each publisher. That is equal to Valhalla selling 10m on xbox. Ascent managed to sell 200k+. And its small devs game.
 

junguler

Banned
well honestly, they can spy on me all they want, they will be bored to death while I play their games for free lol
i get the point that gets made over and over that i have nothing to hide and they can spy on me all they want, but you can't say your life won't be improved if you kept it more private. ultimately it's up to you at the end and i respect that but you can't ever have too much freedom. i'm probably overthinking this but these kinds of stuff bothers me a lot.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
Are you series? Am I reading this correctly?
Fortnite? Being ads? An event? What smoke is this shit? I honestly wants some of the smoke you guys are smoking.
Fornite before all is a game. From a nobody company. They aren't entertainment company. They are a gaming company. They have to pay money to these guys. Epic has to spend millions of dollars to get these guys in to their game.
Disney won't pay any fucking dime to epic, to advertise their games. Warner bros won't do the same. The same Sony who charged epic for cross-platform, won't pay any dime to put Kratos in to fortnite. LeBron won't pay epic a dime, to put his face on fortnite.

Please learn how business is conducted first.

You think money doesn't exchange hands when Epic allows Disney to advertise their new movie (The Rise of Skywalker) or TV shows (The Mandalorian) on Epic's service? Both are getting something out of it, but frankly Disney has far more to gain by reaching the astounding customerbase of young players on Fortnite than Epic does by having Star Wars related events on their service, a service that millions were already playing and paying on and would have been doing so regardless if Disney had ever agreed to a deal.

These wont do any much. The main reason why Playstation and steam are dominant is the little guys. Most people ignore tiny devs.
How many small Japanese devs put their games on xbox? How many small publishers would put their game on epic?

These kind of stuff, is where the main revenue is coming from. 100 small devs game is equal 1 ubisoft game. And both Playstation and steam has them.

Its main ready why xbox is doing ID xbox. To attract those small publishers. 100 of these can make 10m copies game, per 100k each publisher. That is equal to Valhalla selling 10m on xbox. Ascent managed to sell 200k+. And its small devs game.

First, don't move goal posts. You said third party publishers were not making deals with Epic when they plainly are and have been. Furthermore, you seem to speaking from a confident source of authority as to how much revenue Valve or Epic earns from smaller publishers while providing no figures, and after Epic has already released over 100 free games from third party publishers large and small.

It's alright to step back and admit that you're wrong sometimes. We're just discussing video games here. The stakes aren't high. I mean going back to your first post that I quoted, you're attacking a guy for pointing out, rightly, that Fortnite is being leveraged as a powerful advertisement tool. There's not an argument to be had there, Sean Mirrsen Sean Mirrsen was merely pointing out what is.
 

kingfey

Banned
You think money doesn't exchange hands when Epic allows Disney to advertise their new movie (The Rise of Skywalker) or TV shows (The Mandalorian) on Epic's service? Both are getting something out of it, but frankly Disney has far more to gain by reaching the astounding customerbase of young players on Fortnite than Epic does by having Star Wars related events on their service, a service that millions were already playing and paying on and would have been doing so regardless if Disney had ever agreed to a deal.
Its called part of contract. In order to put their stuff on their game, epic would pay some, while promoting their products. Disney won't pay them anything.
Its the same as xbox/Playstation marketing for the timed exclusive games. They would still have to pay the money.

First, don't move goal posts. You said third party publishers were not making deals with Epic when they plainly are and have been. Furthermore, you seem to speaking from a confident source of authority as to how much revenue Valve or Epic earns from smaller publishers while providing no figures, and after Epic has already released over 100 free games from third party publishers large and small.

It's alright to step back and admit that you're wrong sometimes. We're just discussing video games here. The stakes aren't high. I mean going back to your first post that I quoted, you're attacking a guy for pointing out, rightly, that Fortnite is being leveraged as a powerful advertisement tool. There's not an argument to be had there, Sean Mirrsen Sean Mirrsen Sean Mirrsen Sean Mirrsen was merely pointing out what is.
You wouldn't have typed this, if you have taken time to read my point.
Steam is much bigger platform. No matter how much deal epic gets, it won't be as big as steam. That is because, steam has tons of publishers who put their games on steam.

Playstation had thousands of games on their service. That is all due to small publishers putting their games on their services, unlike Xbox which isn't even close to that number. Its why Playstation had $22b revenue last year. All these games attract potential customers.

Not to mention, these publishers improve their company, and you get bigger hit games.
Its all about securing those publishers for long term. And with steam having 120+m users, good luck for small publishers going to epic.
 

chixdiggit

Member
They wont be a danger to steam, as long as 3rd party publishers dont put their games on epic. Until those guys start putting their games on epic, Steam would be safe. Once those guys start putting their games on epic, steam would lose some revenue from this action.
The problem is how they are going about it.
Imagine two grocery stores. One grocery store is a block from your home. It has good parking, decent pricing, you know where everything is, the deli is amazing, and the girl at the cash register is cute.
The second store has broken shopping carts, the employees act like giant assholes, the produce is rotten, you have to park two blocks away, and the bathrooms are disgusting.
Instead of improving the store to compete with the first store, store two buys up all the milk and bread forcing you to shop there.
 

kingfey

Banned
The problem is how they are going about it.
Imagine two grocery stores. One grocery store is a block from your home. It has good parking, decent pricing, you know where everything is, the deli is amazing, and the girl at the cash register is cute.
The second store has broken shopping carts, the employees act like giant assholes, the produce is rotten, you have to park two blocks away, and the bathrooms are disgusting.
Instead of improving the store to compete with the first store, store two buys up all the milk and bread forcing you to shop there.
You just described Wal-Mart, Amazon shops perfectly.

As long as epic has money, they can keep doing these shits, until the other stop cant keep up with. They are forcing their way in.
 
These kind of stuff, is where the main revenue is coming from. 100 small devs game is equal 1 ubisoft game. And both Playstation and steam has them.
You know what doesn't have 100 "little guys" for every major game? Curated stores. They are too great a barrier to entry for small devs, with their arbitrary standards of quality and limited throughput of admissions. Infamously, GOG once declined a Zachtronics game for "looking like a mobile game". A Zachtronics game. Some of the absolute best puzzle-management games out there. That, is why Steam has many times more games than GOG or EGS will ever have.

And also because Steam is the only one working on the problem of discoverability for small indie titles, whereas curated stores just rely on the visibility from the initial release announcement.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
Like you don't already need a launcher (steam) to play games on PC. Please.
People just hate EGS because they're loyal to their favourite brand.

So you decided to just waltz into the thread ignoring pages of arguments for why this is blatantly false. You're an arrogant little fucker.. welcome to my ignore list.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
Steam is same as Playstation. It has games, other platforms don't have.

You cant get persona, on other store front, aside of steam for pc. Or Playstation for Console.

That is why steam is dominant. As long as its gets exclusive games, they win.

This is why epic is needed. To make sure, steam doesn't get complicit.
Epic might be a joke now, but honestly they are much better than steam lately. We don't even have valve games these days, aside of VR game.
I'm sorry but this is shit argument, tbh... Steam is not the only competitor in the market and there are lots of smaller storefronts to get games from, Epic is not even touching Steam with their practices cause Steam is just TOO big to even feel it, but other smaller competitors are totally effected by them, when they wait for a very hyped game to raise their revenues and in the end happens to be Epic exclusive even when promised to Steam users too, it only causes them to loose on sales and nobody care cause "we need them for beating Steam".

Meanwhile, Steam didn't event look at it, didn't even responded, they didn't need to tho... but smaller competitors got all the shit.

TBH I don't care much, it's shit but it's the market being what it is, what bothers me is some people going the samaritan argument of "it's for the ppl!!!" and they don't care about other people being harmed.
 

Fare thee well

Neophyte
I'm sorry but this is shit argument, tbh... Steam is not the only competitor in the market and there are lots of smaller storefronts to get games from, Epic is not even touching Steam with their practices cause Steam is just TOO big to even feel it, but other smaller competitors are totally effected by them, when they wait for a very hyped game to raise their revenues and in the end happens to be Epic exclusive even when promised to Steam users too, it only causes them to loose on sales and nobody care cause "we need them for beating Steam".

Meanwhile, Steam didn't event look at it, didn't even responded, they didn't need to tho... but smaller competitors got all the shit.

TBH I don't care much, it's shit but it's the market being what it is, what bothers me is some people going the samaritan argument of "it's for the ppl!!!" and they don't care about other people being harmed.
True I never considered that angle as well. Thank you.

What's that statement about capitalism? 'There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.' We can try to minimize our negative impact as consumers, but it's not always an easy prospect. So I agree. I, too, get frustrated when people act as if choosing steam or EGS is some kind of selfless virtue. I readily confess I only support steam because it is convenient to me. And I don't think rebuying all my games on EGS will somehow make companies treat developers with the pay, time, and respect they deserve/need. I think that is up to how countries regulate the economy and the big corporation owners themselves. I think sometimes corporations conveniently like that consumers are blamed for how they underpay and treat their employees like shit. I'm very much in favor of making that stop.
 
i'm not a shareholder and epic games is a privately owned company so i don't see why should i care

i got abzû, a plague tale and horizon chase turbo for free, though, so good grief
 

kingfey

Banned
I'm sorry but this is shit argument, tbh... Steam is not the only competitor in the market and there are lots of smaller storefronts to get games from, Epic is not even touching Steam with their practices cause Steam is just TOO big to even feel it, but other smaller competitors are totally effected by them, when they wait for a very hyped game to raise their revenues and in the end happens to be Epic exclusive even when promised to Steam users too, it only causes them to loose on sales and nobody care cause "we need them for beating Steam".

Meanwhile, Steam didn't event look at it, didn't even responded, they didn't need to tho... but smaller competitors got all the shit.

TBH I don't care much, it's shit but it's the market being what it is, what bothers me is some people going the samaritan argument of "it's for the ppl!!!" and they don't care about other people being harmed.
It already happened.
Hitman 3 timed exclusive. Last year, they had borderland 3 timed exclusive.
If they do more, and more timed exclusive, steam would need to respond.

Also, I have no bone in this. I am just benefiting from their fight.

I have now 117 games on epic. I might have bough 10 to 15 games. The rest were free games. Metro series, GTAV, Control ultimate edition, The wolf among us. Top high rated games, for free.
 
If they do more, and more timed exclusive, steam would need to respond.
Steam would never 'respond' in kind, if that's what you mean. It's against the very concept of Steam. The whole point of Steam is keeping the PC platform open, and enticing gamers and developers to stay with the value proposition, rather than locking them down with exclusives and contracts. Exclusives do not enhance the user experience.

It's the main reason why I say the EGS is not competing with Steam. Competition implies striving to be better than your opponent. EGS does not want to be better, it is quite fine with being much worse as long as it can force itself into a slot. The definition of a parasite, in my opinion.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
I can't wait until the little kids get over Fortnite and Epic loses their largest source of revenue. They're an awful company with awful, and I would argue unethical, business practices. They don't care about their customers. They aren't trying to compete on the merits of their storefront. And Tim Sweeny blocked me on Twitter when I called him out.



Also, I created an Epic Games Store account solely so I could purchase every free game (not free-to-play, but discounted to free) I could and cost them money. I won't download their launcher or play the games at all. I just want them to go bankrupt.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
Like you don't already need a launcher (steam) to play games on PC. Please.
People just hate EGS because they're loyal to their favourite brand.

It's really not that difficult to read the thread. If you can't even do that then in all honesty you get what you deserve with the EGS. Hope you enjoy.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
I can't wait until the little kids get over Fortnite and Epic loses their largest source of revenue. They're an awful company with awful, and I would argue unethical, business practices. They don't care about their customers. They aren't trying to compete on the merits of their storefront. And Tim Sweeny blocked me on Twitter when I called him out.



Also, I created an Epic Games Store account solely so I could purchase every free game (not free-to-play, but discounted to free) I could and cost them money. I won't download their launcher or play the games at all. I just want them to go bankrupt.


Will Smith Carlton GIF
 
I think the thread title and some of the OP is a little disingenuous. This is being referred to as a "loss", but I suspect (like the free games) Epic views these deals as an investment to get people on their platform. Did they "expect" Metro Exodus to sell enough to offset the $37million investment in timed exclusivity, or did they see that exclusivity as an investment to get those players to make a purchase from their store?

Everyone wants every product to sell the maximum amount, but that doesn't mean they have no idea how to forecast, set internal expectations, and invest resources towards certain goals.

They way people talk about finances here often comes across as...not very well thought out.

Edit: and in case anyone thinks this a championing of Epic, it is not. I've bought two games from there and collected a large amount of free game licenses. My money for PC games largely goes to Valve, MS (GamePass), and Steam key resellers (mostly buying from individuals out of bundles). If the Epic store went away, I wouldn't really care, and I agree that the user experience of their platform is not competitive.
 
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IFireflyl

Gold Member
I think the thread title and some of the OP is a little disingenuous. This is being referred to as a "loss", but I suspect (like the free games) Epic views these deals as an investment to get people on their platform. Did they "expect" Metro Exodus to sell enough to offset the $37million investment in timed exclusivity, or did they see that exclusivity as an investment to get those players to make a purchase from their store?

You know who else did this? MoviePass. Sell something at a really low price (Epic is going even lower as these games are free), and hope that you attract enough people to your storefront to make it worthwhile.

Here's the problem: Epic's actual storefront is (as you acknowledged) bad. They don't offer anything more than Steam other than these free games. I know a lot of people who take the free games from Epic, but then all their purchases go through Steam. Epic's only saving grace is their exclusivity agreements, and that pisses off a giant chunk of people anyway.

THEY STILL DON'T HAVE A SHOPPING CART!

Sorry for yelling, but that is truly baffling.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Wait ... you're upset that some games went to Epic instead of Steam? Who the hell cares about which launcher a game is stored in?

Is this like the PC equivalent of "console wars"?

Yeah the same people who hate epic store are probably the type that sarcastically write comments like: “Congrats fellow share holders” when people praise Nintendo, Playtstation or Xbox
 
You know who else did this? MoviePass. Sell something at a really low price (Epic is going even lower as these games are free), and hope that you attract enough people to your storefront to make it worthwhile.

Here's the problem: Epic's actual storefront is (as you acknowledged) bad. They don't offer anything more than Steam other than these free games. I know a lot of people who take the free games from Epic, but then all their purchases go through Steam. Epic's only saving grace is their exclusivity agreements, and that pisses off a giant chunk of people anyway.

THEY STILL DON'T HAVE A SHOPPING CART!

Sorry for yelling, but that is truly baffling.
The shopping cart thing is the strangest oversight. I built a Square space site for a friend once, and it was simple to implement. There must a reason.

I wouldn't be surprised if the investment in EGS never pays off, it disappears, and is remembered with basically no fondness. I really just posted to comment on the way people (in my view incorrectly) view these types of financial machinations.
 

BlackTron

Member
Epic could have sat back counting all that Fortnite money but they just had to blow millions of it on some damn idealistic crusade.

Trying to punch too far above their weight wanting to fight Apple. Like now that they have this one HUGE game they are bigger than Miyamoto and will Change the Industry™.
 
Epic could have sat back counting all that Fortnite money but they just had to blow millions of it on some damn idealistic crusade.

Trying to punch too far above their weight wanting to fight Apple. Like now that they have this one HUGE game they are bigger than Miyamoto and will Change the Industry™.
Coulda saved some just spending on hookers and blow.
 

tsumake

Member
You know who else did this? MoviePass. Sell something at a really low price (Epic is going even lower as these games are free), and hope that you attract enough people to your storefront to make it worthwhile.

Here's the problem: Epic's actual storefront is (as you acknowledged) bad. They don't offer anything more than Steam other than these free games. I know a lot of people who take the free games from Epic, but then all their purchases go through Steam. Epic's only saving grace is their exclusivity agreements, and that pisses off a giant chunk of people anyway.

THEY STILL DON'T HAVE A SHOPPING CART!

Sorry for yelling, but that is truly baffling.

I miss moviepass. The last film I saw with it was, interestingly enough, “Avengers Endgame.” Also interesting, the movie theater closed after the showing.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
How come ppl are not angry with console exclusives?

Some people are. But with consoles exclusivity makes more sense. Different consoles have a different hardware and OS, and different performance. Steam vs Epic Games Store doesn't have that at all. It's the same PC, but just a different storefront. It's infuriating for many PC owners to have exclusivity agreements from different (purely digital) storefronts.
 

WitchHunter

Member
Some people are. But with consoles exclusivity makes more sense. Different consoles have a different hardware and OS, and different performance. Steam vs Epic Games Store doesn't have that at all. It's the same PC, but just a different storefront. It's infuriating for many PC owners to have exclusivity agreements from different (purely digital) storefronts.
Yeah, but for example Microsoft, who is the PC market's head honcho, created this console called X, that is a walled garden, instead of running games on its os called Windows. How come ppl are not up in arms?
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Yeah, but for example Microsoft, who is the PC market's head honcho, created this console called X, that is a walled garden, instead of running games on its os called Windows. How come ppl are not up in arms?

That's a completely separate point from your initial question that I answered. People are good with consoles because they're cheaper than gaming PCs.
 
Yeah, but for example Microsoft, who is the PC market's head honcho, created this console called X, that is a walled garden, instead of running games on its os called Windows. How come ppl are not up in arms?
Lots of people weren't thrilled in past gens. But now everything is cross-conpatible with PC, so why be upset?
 
How come ppl are not angry with console exclusives?
There's entire 'console wars' being fought on the internet over those exclusives.

However the issue is that consoles actually compete with each other. As such, they either strive to match their counterpart for the quality of experience (i.e. Playstation vs Xbox), or add their own unique features and advantages (Nintendo and 'retro' console manufacturers).

With EGS, you don't have that. It's an objectively inferior storefront-client platform, not just to Steam but to basically every other one in the PC market space. And it's not interested in making itself better, at least not now or in the foreseeable future. And with all that, it goes and grabs up exclusives, that people would have liked to have a better experience playing from a different ecosystem. It's like if some high-profile franchise suddenly announced that its next game was exclusive to mobile, or Stadia or something. People will absolutely decry good games that could have been better if they released on a better platform, be it a physical device or a just better featured PC ecosystem.
 

Whitecrow

Banned
"the government can spy on me all they want, I'm not doing anything illegal"
Government spying on you have 0 impact in your life.

Spying sounds bad on paper, but in reality it's not that worrysome. What's the worst that can happen if the government knows your tastes or who you sleep with??
Draw some statistics? Make a market study??
 

Skifi28

Member
Government spying on you have 0 impact in your life.

Spying sounds bad on paper, but in reality it's not that worrysome. What's the worst that can happen if the government knows your tastes or who you sleep with??
Draw some statistics? Make a market study??
I'd move to China if I were you, I hear it's a lovely place.
 

WitchHunter

Member
There's entire 'console wars' being fought on the internet over those exclusives.

However the issue is that consoles actually compete with each other. As such, they either strive to match their counterpart for the quality of experience (i.e. Playstation vs Xbox), or add their own unique features and advantages (Nintendo and 'retro' console manufacturers).

With EGS, you don't have that. It's an objectively inferior storefront-client platform, not just to Steam but to basically every other one in the PC market space. And it's not interested in making itself better, at least not now or in the foreseeable future. And with all that, it goes and grabs up exclusives, that people would have liked to have a better experience playing from a different ecosystem. It's like if some high-profile franchise suddenly announced that its next game was exclusive to mobile, or Stadia or something. People will absolutely decry good games that could have been better if they released on a better platform, be it a physical device or a just better featured PC ecosystem.
Ahem. Why not just ignore, why ppl are up in arms? Care to elaborate?
 
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