The Epic Games store for PC and Mac [2018-12]

It is perfectly valid to not buy stuff from Epics store/Windows gaming platform because they lack certain features. I think cloud saving is really important and I probably would not buy a (modern) game that does not have that.

Cloud saving is something you can jury-rig with any existing cloud service by way of softlinking the save directory to an existing cloud service. I used to do this before cloud saving was standard in Steam.

I still do this with Minecraft!
 
Phoenix Point developer reports 191% return thanks to Epic Games Store exclusivity
Snapshot Games made headlines last month, after lead developer Julian Gollop revealed that Phoenix Point was signed to temporarily be an Epic Games Store exclusive. Backers of its crowdfunding campaign were understandably irate at being told they will have to wait up to a year for their promised Steam or GOG key, but new statistics reveal that the decision to make the game exclusive has helped double development costs ahead of its release.

An email that was sent to Fig backers was shared on Resetera, clearly stating that Phoenix Point had “already accrued a 191% return” thanks to the publishing strategy. The timed exclusivity deal with Epic Games “brought in significant resources” for Phoenix Point. So with a 191% return, the development budget has been paid off and the remaining 91% is pure profit ahead of the game’s launch in September.
https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/damien-cox/phoenix-point-developer-reports-191-return-thanks-to-epic-games-store-exclusivity/
 
If the game tanks Epic is on the hook, no one is going to turn down that kind of deal unless they have the confidence it will be a breakthrough success ... I think the game looks a bit too shallow and threadbare compared to xcom-2, an inevitable comparison, so I think reviews could be pretty hard on the game. I'd let Epic carry the risk and swallow a slightly smaller market too.
 
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It can't really not be a success since Epic exclusivity guarantees a certain amount of sales for it to be profitable.
 
Dunno what Valve is waiting for, going to ~15% should be a no brainer. Perhaps they are structured such that if they did that a lot of people would lose their jobs? If so I have genius idea: get those folks together and make a fucking videogame.
 
Maybe Valve forgot how to compile software?
 
Dunno what Valve is waiting for, going to ~15% should be a no brainer. Perhaps they are structured such that if they did that a lot of people would lose their jobs? If so I have genius idea: get those folks together and make a fucking videogame.
They can't have many employees. They don't actually do anything except keep Steam servers running, iterate on the Steam client occasionally, make a few pieces of hardware and have an R&D division? Steam doesn't require a shit ton of customer service staff since there's no human QA on game submissions so it's basically flex workers processing refunds, order issues and some tech support. They basically have printed money for decades with very little overhead.
 
They can't have many employees. They don't actually do anything except keep Steam servers running, iterate on the Steam client occasionally, make a few pieces of hardware and have an R&D division? Steam doesn't require a shit ton of customer service staff since there's no human QA on game submissions so it's basically flex workers processing refunds, order issues and some tech support. They basically have printed money for decades with very little overhead.
I think they have quite a few people working on useless projects like the steam controller.
 
Dunno what Valve is waiting for, going to ~15% should be a no brainer. Perhaps they are structured such that if they did that a lot of people would lose their jobs? If so I have genius idea: get those folks together and make a fucking videogame.

Because more sales doesn't equal more profit. Somebody would have done the math and figured losing some games as exclusives to Epic would not outweigh lowering their earning on every other title they sell.

Besides that probably wouldn't solve anything anyway because it appears Epic is offering a guaranteed amount of money. From a dev/pub point of view risks are low because going with Epic you know you are going to turn a profit.
 
Dunno what Valve is waiting for, going to ~15% should be a no brainer. Perhaps they are structured such that if they did that a lot of people would lose their jobs? If so I have genius idea: get those folks together and make a fucking videogame.

A games journalist had this to say about it when Tim Sweeney claimed that Epic would back away from buying exclusivity if Steam were to adopt the same pricing model.

From this article.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/25/...om-exclusives-if-valve-changes-revenue-model/


Also what a fucking hypocrite. What does Steam's pricing practices have to do with GoG or Origin or any other potential game storefront? I really hate people like Tim Sweeney, and I used to be a HUGE fan of his.

And shouldn't they be trying to buy exclusivity from the console maker's as well? Since Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have a similar pricing model to Valve? They should be considered evil as well and Epic should be trying to "save gamers" from their evil practices, right?

Steam are also still the only major storefront that allows unproven indie developers equal footing with the big AAA developers and established indie developers. While this leads to a lot of trash, it also leads to a lot of gems that may otherwise never see the light of day.

All of that costs money. And in the case of unlimited free keys to game developers in order to put their games on other storefronts or for free giveaways to promote their games, no revenue for Valve.

It's easy to rag on Valve for being the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, just like it's been easy to rag on Microsoft the past few years despite the many good things they bring to consumers and developers. In many cases far beyond the public perception that those companies receive.

And while I detest Epic for their anti-consumer behavior, I'm still not blind to some of the good things they can do when they want to. Like their 100 million USD MegaGrants fund which doesn't have any obligations to Epic tied to it (game developers that get approved don't have to be exclusive to the Epic store, for example).

Also interesting from Tim Sweeney himself.


Oh, you mean markets that Valve operate extensively in? What about costly game cards in stores? What about other payment methods? What about things like being able to purchase a game directly in a convenience store (like in Japan which Steam enables) which costs far more than 12%? What a hypocrite.

A large portion of the 30% that Valve takes goes towards making their games available and accessible to as many people as possible. 15% just for payment processing in some countries. I wonder how much the physical payment cards that Steam provides to retail stores in Western countries costs them? After all, retail stores have to get a cut as well.

Regards,
SB
 
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It would of course be better if the payment fee was totally transparent for all customers, but AFAIK Visa etc. forbid just that. You can't charge a different rate for different types of credit cards AFAIK.
 
A games journalist had this to say about it when Tim Sweeney claimed that Epic would back away from buying exclusivity if Steam were to adopt the same pricing model.

From this article.

https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/25/...om-exclusives-if-valve-changes-revenue-model/


Also what a fucking hypocrite. What does Steam's pricing practices have to do with GoG or Origin or any other potential game storefront? I really hate people like Tim Sweeney, and I used to be a HUGE fan of his.

If Steam only took 12 % there wouldn't be any space to start a competitor. It would be more profitable for Epic (and EA and Blizzard etc) to sell directly on Steam than run their own stores.
 
More money for developers while not increasing prices for customers = very good to me.
We all jumped guns when Valve inflicted Steam upon us with Half-Life², and now look what happens, people WANT ONLY Steam... That's soooo ironic...
Competition is welcome, exclusives are part of it and truly who cares about installing one more launcher?
I already have Steam, UPlay, GoG Galaxy installed...
 
More money for developers while not increasing prices for customers = very good to me.
We all jumped guns when Valve inflicted Steam upon us with Half-Life², and now look what happens, people WANT ONLY Steam... That's soooo ironic...
Competition is welcome, exclusives are part of it and truly who cares about installing one more launcher?
I already have Steam, UPlay, GoG Galaxy installed...


The problem is right now epic launcher is subpar. Is cloud backup available yet for exemple ? Screenshot ? etc...
 
Why does a game store and game launcher need to handle Cloud Backups and Screenshots? Isn't that still the part of the game or OS when you're dealing with Windows gaming?
 
Why does a game store and game launcher need to handle Cloud Backups and Screenshots? Isn't that still the part of the game or OS when you're dealing with Windows gaming?
Cloud backups? Not at all. That would require every single game developer having their own servers to store the data and everything involved with that. And they'll be expected to have those servers available for decades as well? What you're asking is well beyond most developers capabilities other than the huge publishers of course (who have their own launcher handling that already or simply don't make anything but "live service" games now anyway).

And OS handling the cloud backups? Again would require online servers (which MS obviously have) but would also require the game being registered with a centralized service to know where the saves are kept for duplication. Why would they do that? There's no incentive. And Steam handles any OS as well so linux and Mac gaming support it.

Screenshots? A global screenshot system where they're stored in a single location is convenient, in addition to being able to select which images are stored in the cloud and which are publicly visible. There's no way every game developer is going to be able to provide that kind of functionality.
 
Oh, they meant mean game saves? Cloud Backups is so nebulous a term for PC. So then the Unreal Engine platform for the PC doesnt offer their own server game save to the cloud? Not even as addon option tier of service?


I'm pretty sure the Xbox Play Anywhere / Xbox infrastructure offers that benefit, even integration for Switch, iOS, and Android in addition to PC on WinOS. As for screenshots and recordings, I think Xbox Game Bar covers that too.
 
Oh, they meant mean game saves? Cloud Backups is so nebulous a term for PC. So then the Unreal Engine platform for the PC doesnt offer their own server game save to the cloud? Not even as addon option tier of service?
Yes, for saves. The Epic Store doesn't have hardly any features, you can basically buy games and install them. I think it has a friends list. They added the ability to search for games recently. Cloud saves is apparently coming May/June.

I'm pretty sure the Xbox Play Anywhere / Xbox infrastructure offers that benefit, even integration for Switch, iOS, and Android in addition to PC on WinOS. As for screenshots and recordings, I think Xbox Game Bar covers that too.
Well unless developers start selling through the Xbox infrastructure/store, it's not really going to help.
 
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