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How will the Epic Game Store retain customers over the long term?
- Thread starter hersheyfan
- Start date
Steam did that in an era where every other alternative was dogshit, so you were happy to be using steam. EGS does not have the luxury of having no competent competition. In fact, they come off as the incompetent competition in many ways.
They are using the same tactics that Valve did for Steam so many years ago. Exclusive games and great sales to get as many members as possible, then just sit back and watch the money flow in.
Every investment is a negative at start.
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Step 1 of course is getting as big as Steam in terms of people actually buying stuff, which will take quite some doing.
To put it from a console perspective: AAA games have to launch on a variety of different platforms in order to be financially viable, given that theyre so expensive to develop. It would take a helluva lot of sales at the lower price point to overcome potentially selling to north of 90 million users. Unlike consoles, PC storefronts have no predetermined shelf life.
Regional pricing. It costs 13 USD where I live.
Competition is good.
Bad competition is pointless, though, as it does nothing to push Steam forwards. People really need to recognise that innovation does not always require competition. Also, for one who mentions "pearl clutching", "snapping at their heels to keep them honest" seems disingenuous.
As for your "Steam will then have to start appealing more to customers rather than take them for granted like they have currently" - Valve has just rolled out Remote Play in the client beta. Play any game hosted by your PC anywhere, depending upon connection. They just released the iOS Steam Link app yesterday. Neither of which was impacted by EGS, but both of which do much for users. And the "race to the bottom" of quality is just repeating Youtubers complaints, as there is comparatively little shit on Steam when viewed as the total number of games.
Brute force (throwing fat stacks). The way every large organization has entered into any market dominated by only a few.
It's a percentage game. Epic is trying to get their fingers into as many pies as possible hoping that a high enough percentage will convert to profitable users in the future. A relatively small piece of a huge pie (e.g. the potential converts from Fortnite players to future customers) is still absolutely a big piece. Also, don't forget that Steam also competes with EGS in the F2P market.
People were not happy about using steam at first. This is completely inaccurate. Maybe years later and who is to say the same thing doesn't happen with EGS years from now.
It's still a store front. And what I said stands. The more games you have in a launcher the more likely you are to visit the store.
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Answer the question!
I spelled it out for you explicitly - how do you make these people who "just want a good deal" to go buy stuff on EGS instead of Steam? By your logic, when the Steam Summer Sale rolls around, theyll have "better deals" than Epic at that point in time, because the EGS sale will have ended. Won't that mean these people who "caved" and bought games from the EGS will now buy games from Steam?
You said it yourself, buddy - the market at large has no loyalty, so how does Epic make people come back to them instead of just go back to their "base storefront"?
Oh, for sure that's their aim. I just don't think it'll be enough for a) consumers who want a feature-rich client, and b) pubs/devs who want a well-run alternative to Steam. Like, Valve came in for shit with their algorithm change last year, but this was Epic literally not telling Paradox about a sale. So as it stands now, yeah, Fortnite players are their best (and only :p ) shot at long--term survival.
Speak for yourself. In my country Steam was basically the first method of ever being able to reliably buy legitimate non-pirated games. If not for steam everyone would still be pirating, because there was virtually no real option to buy legit PC games that weren't either pirated copies sold at major stores, or extremely marked up (like 3x) imported copies of games. This is also the situation for many, many other people in countries where piracy was rampant.
User Banned (1 Week): Antagonizing Another User and a History of Similar Behavior; Accumulated Infractions
Aha so you're a Steam Stan, I can see this conversation would not be worth continuing.
Well. That's pure antagonism right there. You're being ignored and reported. Have fuuuuuuun.
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It's interesting that pointing out what Valve/Steam do right, and questioning the inherent value of competition - as though that single word makes every argument disappear - makes one a Steam stan. Like, it's not, but let's assume it is:
Why would Epic not want to get into the situation where there are EGS Stans? Why would you not build-up brand-loyalty, and a consistent userbase that would stick through all the growing pains a store naturally has? Why would you antagonise both consumers and devs/pubs, and repeatedly go-back on public statements?
Makes you think if they have any long-term plan at all... Oh, wait, I said as much in my first post here and wasn't called a Steam stan. :p
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That's my opinion too. I think if they lose the cut, exclusives, and /or general loss leading stuff and don't replace it with something else (like actual features), they might have some trouble down the line. Depends if that Fortnite money will drop off anytime soon.
I've only downloaded the free games they've given me, but today marked my very first purchase of a game through their store; Hades. They'll get more money out of me if they keep giving us good prices. I'm not going to suddenly delete my epic account someday though. They'll retain me as a customer for as long as I have a working PC. Will I buy more games from them? Depends on the price and to be completely honest, exclusives (as much as everyone hates them taking games away from other services). If I had the choice to buy Hades on Steam I would've. I dig both Transistor and Bastion so I always wanted Hades, but $20 for an early access game of it's caliber didn't get me to bite. $10 felt more like it to me. So far I'm digging it!
Imagine thinking that you're forced into an eco system because they have exclusive games. Mental gymnastics.
Confused by this. People (often?) refer to Steam as an ecosystem - not-great Polygon article here, and PCGamer article here both use it. So it's not unusual that people would refer to the EGS as an ecosystem, even though it technically is probably an incorrect use of the word. With Steam there is so much there, but EGS does seem to just be a store and nothing else.
Unless I'm totally misunderstanding your post? :)
This is why I was opposed to Steam for years. My games were in the Impulse ecosystem for the most part, and Impulse was a good service, which helped. It took getting the Orange Box and loving TF2 (pre-hats) for me to get Steam.
Civ V was when I stopped using Impulse, Stardock gave up after that became exclusive and sold to Gamestop, who wrecked Impulse very quickly.
If Epic keeps shooting themselves in the foot, all the Fortnite money in the world won't save them ;) I'm assuming though that they are learning from their mistakes and have enough runway to make people forget about their early stumbling.
You don't think it's enough time? That's a bias.
People already buy in Humble Bundle, GOG, GMG, Origin, uPlay, etc. It doesn't mean they abandoned Steam.
have no predetermined shelf life.[/QUOTE]
Ubisoft earn as much money if they sell a game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Switch. On PC, they earn 70-80% if they sell their game on Steam, 88% on Epic Games Store and 95% on Uplay. So, you can't really compare consoles and PC.
Their goal is to be big enough to attract publishers and consumers without free games and timed exclusives.
Ubisoft earn as much money if they sell a game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Switch. On PC, they earn 70-80% if they sell their game on Steam, 88% on Epic Games Store and 95% on Uplay. So, you can't really compare consoles and PC.
Absolutely and Epic needs to win this battle. If they did, they will be able to become profitable easily.
Epic think they can be profitable with the 88/12 share. So, at some point, they will stop to give free games and to pay for exclusives and their store will be profitable if enough people use it.
Their goal is to be big enough to attract publishers and consumers without free games and timed exclusives.
Ubisoft earn as much money if they sell a game on PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Switch. On PC, they earn 70-80% if they sell their game on Steam, 88% on Epic Games Store and 95% on Uplay. So, you can't really compare consoles and PC.
Though I would point out that used games exist on consoles which affect the nominal margins. I wonder if anyone has ever studied how big the used game market is actually?
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While in many cases also eating the 5% license costs for Unreal Engine.
They should open up their store a bit more. Not on Steam's scale, but maybe one new game a day? Basically give people a reason to keep checking on EGS. This is what GOG did (announced new(old?) releases on a regular schedule, I think every Monday and Thursday?) when they were still in beta back in 2007/8.
He's saying that you're not being forced into it. You have the option of waiting for the game to arrive on other platforms or not buying the game at all. Nobody is forcing you to use EGS.
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That's pretty condescending. Don't you think I knew what the platform holder splits were before posting the OP?
The point is, to make your money back on an AAA game, the only way to maximize your chances of making a profit are to sell it in as many places as you can. To do that in the console space, you port the game between consoles with similar architectures, incurring a cost to expand your market. On PC, you dont even need to port between "ecosystems" since you're literally using the exact same hardware - you could potentially sell your expensive to develop game to all these other people for free, but are choosing not to because of a higher split. So you need to take the financial consideration to make up the difference.
So, again, what happens when you stop giving out free games and subsidizing purchases? Since there's no physical device locking me into this "ecosystem", whats to stop me from just spending my money somewhere else the next time somebody throws up a sale?
For the countries that generate the Lions share of game revenue the deals are nothing special.
Good question. It's clear to me that Epic's initial plan of buying exclusives and betting everything on developers, in the assumption that customers will inevitably follow, didn't work, which is why they are doing this fire sale. They can moneyhat all the exclusives they want but they still won't get the core audience to buy from them this way and they need that core audience since that's the part of the market that buys a lot of games and maintains big digital collections. They have the resources to keep moneyhatting games and financing fire sales out of their own pockets for a long time but that isn't a sustainable business model.
So, I don't really know. I'm sure the mainstream doesn't care much about the controversy but the core PC audience hates Epic and without that audience they'll never be able to beat Steam. We're in for a fascinating next few months.
So, I don't really know. I'm sure the mainstream doesn't care much about the controversy but the core PC audience hates Epic and without that audience they'll never be able to beat Steam. We're in for a fascinating next few months.
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This is also a great point. 10 dollars is a lot less impressive if you apply it to an expensive market's pricing, which they obviously need to turn a profit eventually.
Yes, this is how I feel as well. The PC Gaming Show at E3 is likely to be full of EGS announcements, and it's going to be interesting to see if Sweeney and co. actually have a well thought out plan.
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I'd say they'd have to create a better store/client than Steam, but currently they're still very far away from being even nearly as accomplished, so...who knows what'll happen in a few years.
true $10usd is nothing to write home about. Being able to make a russian account and get brand new titles for less than $15 dollars is tho.
A very small amount of people take advantage of regional pricing through VPN's. It's not enough to make Epic the winner.
not saying that will make them succeed but for people like me that do take advantage of that it becomes a very good reason to go back to the store over and over (if these types of sales continue)
other than that Epic does not introduce anything that retains me as a customer.
To do this they need to invest in the eco system and services. It needs to be better than Steam in this regard. Quite simply, it needs to become a platform like Steam, and not just a store front.
It feels like Epic has missed the point here totally. Right now people will buy the occasional Epic exclusive perhaps, but Steam will still be the first thing they open when they want to game, due to the community features, achievements, controller mapping, BPM, Steam Link etc. It's even the small things: Epic's store doesn't tell you if a game has controller support, what the actual release date is of an upcoming game, doesn't have user reviews.
It feels like Epic has missed the point here totally. Right now people will buy the occasional Epic exclusive perhaps, but Steam will still be the first thing they open when they want to game, due to the community features, achievements, controller mapping, BPM, Steam Link etc. It's even the small things: Epic's store doesn't tell you if a game has controller support, what the actual release date is of an upcoming game, doesn't have user reviews.
Careful with Ubisoft games. They've already made them Russian language only, presumably because of this type of stuff.
Interesting, thanks for the heads up. Will probably continue to get Ubi games on console or Uplay tho tbh. Thankfully Epic does do refunds if any other game goes russian only.
yeah for sure. I was speaking more in the sense what they would have to do to retain me as a customer but a whole i completely agree.
Inertia. Once you've got a library in a digital marketplace, unless you're willing to abandon those games, you'll need to engage with their infrastructure to play them, at which point you're a viable avenue for advertising products on that store.
That still depends on the advert/promotion/sale being compelling, but that's dependent on the product itself.
That still depends on the advert/promotion/sale being compelling, but that's dependent on the product itself.
The same way Steam does. People become increasingly more loyal the more digital products they own tied to a service: Android, iOS, Xbox, Playstation. Everyone wants a piece of the ecosystem pie and EGS wants to secure as many clients as it can before they stop investing heavily in their service.
I remember Gabe Newell's attitude being that their greatest competitor was piracy, and that the way to compete was to provide a better service/product than piracy. Even in the age of GaaS, I think that's still true for Steam, and it's just as true for Epic, although they are then also competing with what Steam has become so far.
Buying up exclusives is not a long term strategy, and neither is having aggressive sales. They haven't shown a huge willingness yet to compete beyond that, but if Valve actually starts making some serious improvements to Steam, Epic is gonna be in for a hell of a fight.
Buying up exclusives is not a long term strategy, and neither is having aggressive sales. They haven't shown a huge willingness yet to compete beyond that, but if Valve actually starts making some serious improvements to Steam, Epic is gonna be in for a hell of a fight.
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Doesnt that directly prove my point, though? If people become more loyal the more digital products they have tied to a service, then Steam in all likelihood has more weight that nearly any other storefront in existence, given that it spans multiple "generations" and has existed as the PC platform's de facto storefront for years.
As has been discussed earlier in the thread, if Epic is counting on the younger Fortnite PC gamers who weren't around during that long period of Steam having the PC market largely to itself (and hence never built up the kind of library that so many PC gamers already have), then it might take a while to get where they want to go, if they ever do.
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They might also buy more studios to make permanent exclusives or leverage the influence of their investor Tencent to get exclusives without paying a lot for them.
This is a weird way of looking at console ownership though. When I buy games for my consoles I don't buy them justify my console purchase, I buy them because I want to play them. In fact, the entire reason I buy a console is because I want to play the games that are only available on that console. That's the effect EGS wants to emulate with storefront exclusives.
Breaking into a market with only a few, dominant actors is hard, so loss-leading based on your war chest from elsewhere is usually the way to go. That's how Microsoft got their foot in the door with the OG Xbox, and it paid off massively when the 360 rolled out (and then they threw it all away with the X1 but that's another story).
Epic's challenge is first and foremost getting people to use their platform, ie to consider it a place where they might buy something, and not just the Fortnite Launcher. Valve, EA, Activision and - to an extent - Bethesda, Ubisoft and Rockstar have all used big-name game releases to force the adoption of their own stores or launchers. Beyond Fortnite, Epic doesn't really have anything they can leverage in the same way. People who don't play Fortnite already clearly aren't enticed by it, hence the exclusivity deals and the free games: Get people to make an account, get them to install the Launcher and, get them to use that Launcher to play Subnautica or whatever. In theory it should be easier for them, because the price of entry into their ecosystem is 0, as opposed to the price of console hardware.
Is it working? It must have been, to an extent. People bought and played Metro Exodus. Was it working as well as they'd hoped? Probably not. Paying for exclusives on PC was always going to be controversial, and their incendiary, smug communication about it quickly eroded any potential goodwill among sceptics. The pricing is also absurd, at least in my region, which makes their claims about passing on savings to customers laughable. And then there's the store itself, which to this day remains comically barebones in every respect. In their rush to get the store up and running and secure those exclusives, they either forgot that it needed a certain level of functionality for people to willingly adopt it, or they assumed it wouldn't matter on the strength of their exclusives.
The sale we're seeing now is probably an indication that it matters, and also that they haven't been able to get the traction they wanted from exclusives alone. This sale, I think, is probably going to do wonders for expanding both their user base, and crucially, the portion of the user base that has spent any amount of money on the store. The latter in particular is an important hurdle to get people across, making them graduate from just collecting their free games to actually buying them. Like someone said in the sale thread, why didn't they lead with this? Being asked to pay more to be locked into a bad store on some nebulous promise of benefiting the developer is very a different proposition to paying 75% less for a game and then putting up with the bad store.
But of course this - showering devs in money, eating big discounts on every game - is not sustainable in the long run. Even if Epic tends to act with absolutely staggering arrogance, I believe they understand that. They have a window in which spending big to establish a userbase is seen as an acceptable investment in the future, which is also predicated on the continued success of Fortnite. If it doesn't pan out, I'm not sure where they go from there.
This sale is a symptom of several things: That their strategy up to this point hasn't worked as well as they hoped, but also that they're willing to reach much deeper into the V-Bucks War chest in order to secure that elusive userbase, essentialy taking losses on every sale of some games to make sure you launch it from their store.
