-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Jason Kingsley: Epic is "paying through the nose" to build its store
- Thread starter abracadaver
- Start date
No one but Epic really knows that timeline, but that's a ton of time to make platform changes, read & develop for market viability, and find better niches.
I think claiming they don't have a "well thought out plan" is a bit bullish - I think they have quite a few plans, they just haven't made it known publicly, because there's zero advantage and full risk to that.
Their launch strategy is their product strategy: launch with meaningful benefit to developers, and focus on having better titles vs a better platform, because it is not possible nor fiscally effective to launch a totally feature complete competitor to something that's been around for a decade with the biggest userbase in the world. In this analogy: think how Facebook when it launched had far less user-facing functionality than MySpace and the rest of the social networks at the time. it was focused on a specific audience & that user groups desired feature set, vs competing across all fronts.
Epic is taking the arcum's razor approach: titles drive active users more than any specific feature, so money put towards that will drive the business health goals better than any feature developed. It works, and likely is working for them pretty well for that god metric internally. This isn't me advocating the approach, but I am saying that it's probably working better than expected for them, because it's a pretty reliable strategy towards that particular success criteria.
The challenge I see is what you see in core gaming communities, press articles, influencer videos, and the general vibe: that it's really difficult for players, be they potential or current active, to advocate the Epic Games Store. Exclusivity builds an active audience, but it doesn't build fandom. Neither do existing features, fwiw - fandom is built on earned trust, new functionality, better experiences, better communities and something to be excited for.
The lack of a shopping cart, the correct amount of exclusive titles, or revshare isn't Epic's problem right now: it's that they haven't built or nurtured a consumer audience to advocate the EGS, or guide them to making a better EGS, and none of their publishing so far is conductive to having said consumer audience. So they'll likely do OK on the MAU, revenue targets, and developer sentiment feedback over the next year or so, but that won't be sufficient to achieve critical mass over a Steam like incumbent. My guess is eventually they'll figure this part out, and that's when it'll be exciting - but time will tell.
What?
The revenue split is about money.
What do you think they are implying otherwise?
I honestly doubt that it's working all that well for them. Having to do a fire sale a couple of months after they declared that they would not be doing any store-wide sale events would seem to suggest that they had to take some drastic measures to hit whatever internal MAU goals they had set.
Personal thoughts (not Riot's obv), and I am not a developer, but there's a lot to be done here with the advantage that's just now starting to be seen by developers. The biggest by far is the platform-agnostic capabilities of the engine being matched with feature-complete PC integration development, meaning that if you are building X game for PS/XBox/Switch/Mobile?, the UE/EGS hooks (think things like friends lists, QA automation for your code, microtransaction capability, controlling/managing user entitlements) mean that the title is almost parity developed for EGS without too much additional work. This is what Valve did with Steamworks originally btw, and it was a killer advantage for them. The fact that your Unreal Engine royalties also go down if you go EGS is pretty significant to many AA/big indie developers, too. Finally, Unreal Engine's tech stack I'm told has been pretty adaptable from revision to revision, so if you have an older game built with UE, there's a good chance you can modernize/HD' it up for an EGS release much easier than any other PC storefront - but I don't think this is as much as an advantage as others do, simply because of how many of the publishers with back catalogs don't struggle for development challenges here (it's purely opportunity cost vs. tech challenge).
When I look at EGS's development roadmap, most of the eggs seem to be focused on this basket, and in terms of business strategy (not player satisfaction strategy!) it seems like a smart play. But, as I alluded in my other post, I think they'll need to eventually put way more investment into player-facing features towards advocacy than developer comfort. We shall see!
But unreal engine already has these integrations for Steam, and already supports a lot more features than EGS even has in its roadmap (i.e. because EGS is a bad, primitive platform).
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/steam-support-in-unreal-engine-4
I meant that wasn't the main reason devs go to Epic Store.
Kills me they'll spend this much money on a store but not on Unreal. This amount of cash would've let you market Unreal east.
Really can't blame devs for however much they're getting to put it on their store combined with the better cut.
I personally miss Paragon, it had to die so Fortnite BR could have more devs. Fortnite Save The World still isn't f2p and I've been waiting to try that for so long. I was going to buy the early access but it was supposed to go free only a few months later during the time.
Basic economy says something very clear: Cost doesnt define price. So your and Tim claim are basically bullshit.
They're hoping that if they throw enough Fortnite money at it, they can build something that resembles what it took Valve years to achieve in far less time. The biggest tell from them is their own haste to get results, because that tells me that they're concerned that Fortnite's best days are on the clock, and when that income stream slows, suddenly EGS becomes an expensive gamble to keep throwing money at.
No, you're wrong. This is referring to developers breaking even with fewer units sold. It's transparently obvious that competition has driven down prices in games thus far. We went down to $1 on mobile then to free, and AAA games have been $60 since 2006, which would be $77.50 inflation adjusted.
I respect a person who doesn't put out a PR statement about why the EGS partnership was going to deliver the best experience to consumers.
He should post of video of himself swimming in a jacuzzi of hundreds McDuck style. Straight cash homie.
He should post of video of himself swimming in a jacuzzi of hundreds McDuck style. Straight cash homie.
If devs/publishers/Epic wanted lowers prices they would offer it to consumers because they actually took down by competition and thats exactly what EGS brings up....right?
But you are right we better wait for trickle down to get into work! (Which as always worked out right? RIGHT?)
It's never, ever, ever going to trickle down to customers. Epic is exhibiting strong anti-customer behavior now that they should be trying to court customers, it's foolish to expect them to change their tune if they ever find themselves in a position of power. Epic has made its policy very clear: they'd rather try to force customers than entice them.
Perhaps they have a plan for this stuff, but they've certainly not demonstrated it to consumers. We do know some of their plans, they have their roadmap, but they just keep delaying everything on it instead of shipping useful features.
I think it is extremely misguided to be spending so much money, generating so much negative user sentiment, just because they wanted to rush their store out.
With your myspace/facebook analogy, what Epic are doing would have been paying popular myspace accounts to delete their account to move over to facebook back when facebook was barely functional.
I completely agree that features (whilst being something that matters) aren't the main reason that people prefer to use Steam. It's because they trust Valve to do right by them, and Valve have spent over 15 years earning that trust. Epic currently haven't particularly done anything to demonstrate they are worthy of that kind of trust, and just seem to be attempting to buy their way into market share and just put out PR fires if and when they come up. They've not shown any strong vision for consumers about what they are trying to build EGS into being, and even contradict themselves plenty (saying EGS's purpose is to advocate for all developers across the world, and then force developers into exclusivity deals that they have no say over by going over their heads to publisher).
Even Devolver Digital, who are extremely self aware 99% of the time, dropped the ball on this and didn't just say "we wanted the money".
I dont know why this is so hard to understand. Those pubs are just going to laugh all the way to the bank.
I'm OK with price parity with Steam if it means (which I presume to still be true) a bigger cut to developers.
I just want to know that the EGS is going to be around for the long haul before putting money into it.
I just want to know that the EGS is going to be around for the long haul before putting money into it.
I'd worry about the safety of your account and games you spent money on too. 2 times in 2 weeks people got the password to my account, and I hardly touch the thing and have never interacted with anyone on it.
Yup. I have it on good authority that they really like making as much money as possible.
I'm not. Valve is the only company that has invested considerable funds in developing features that make PC gaming better as a platform so I'd prefer that they get a large enough cut to keep improving my experience.
I appreciate the honesty. Still feels like a dumb fuck decision by epic. As ive said before, they could have put all this money into their own studios, built a stable of nice exclusives and then released their store. During the development of these games they could have put massive work into their store to make it competitive with Steam. Would have taken longer sure but they wouldn't have recieved anywhere near the hate. Instead folk like me won't touch their store out of spite...considering the barebones bumblefuck scene they got going on over there I ain't missing much lol.
I'll have the same attitude I have had with other devs/pubs. Good luck, see ya in a year...maybe.
I'll have the same attitude I have had with other devs/pubs. Good luck, see ya in a year...maybe.
To be fair to most of them, they probably have contracts that forbid them to say that stuff, or push them to say some cleverly masked PR points, as all devs basically seem to always be reading for a guideline when answering that shit even when it makes no sense at all.
Thankfully yes! I just don't know how it's happening. At least on Steam you have to click a dodgy link or something, but merely existing in EGS puts your account at risk apparently.
If they signed a contract that required them to put out misleading statements, that's on them.
And thats why it isnt working, since we became PC (mostly) gamers because we like options and having certain freedom, not being forced to.
Did competition bring down prices on mobile or did developers realize they can make a lot more money by making a game free and having IAP?
Your AAA games example ignores microtransactions, digital distribution (which for some AAA games is almost half of their sales and greatly reduced used games' impact on profit) and season passes leading to some games costing $100. The market is also bigger.
Fair play I guess. Personally I don't care where I buy games from. Microsoft and Sony have bought up exclusives in the past so it was bound to happen on PC one day.
It sucks but that's how it is these days
No sense crying over spilled milk imo
It sucks but that's how it is these days
No sense crying over spilled milk imo
Nahh fuck that and the defeatist attitude. Exercise a bit of self control and don't reward companies for putting the customer in last place. You don't NEED to play the hottest new release, you have been conditioned to buy shit day one, to pre order shit for little to no benefits. The smartest gamer these days is the one who has patience.
It is barebones yes, but some things take time.
Steam was also shit at first you know.
Steam was not shit compared to the competition, who were literally charging you "download insurance" to guarantee that your download would still be available for X number of years.
Digital distribution was in it's infancy, and Valve were at the forefront of making it as good as possible for customers.
This is not at all comparable to Epic Game Store.
The Model T didn't have "air bags" or "a sound system" or "seat belts."
These things take time.
These things take time.
None of those things were industry standards when the model t initially released.
If a new car were to be released today without those and other industry standard features and functionality, people would not buy it.
I've heard that excuse a million times by now and honestly... I don' care. Epic isn't competing with the Steam of 2003 but the Steam of TODAY.
If Epic wants to release that underdeveloped shit platform against far more mature competitors, that's on them. Consumers shouldn't care about how Steam launched more than a goddamned decade ago.
Why? Are you going to use it if it's there?
How long do we think fortnite will be around for....seriously....the MP side of gaming can finally return to normal after "battle royale" finally dies out.
It's already been around significantly longer than I ever expected it to. Then again, I don't think it's fun at all. My nephew on the other hand... he plays it nearly all day every day.
Eh, maybe not. i guess you'd have to have more than one game worth buying to make it worth it.
Oh I'm not saying I like it. I don't buy the majority of games day one either.
Just that exclusivity while it sucks (big Destiny fan on Xbox so I had the pain of the PS exclusive shit for years) it's how it is these days
:D
Well that and Timothy doesn't deserve support for acting like a spoilt rich baby!
Exclusives are the only path they have. Featurewise , GOG and Steam have the market cornered. There's no way you can make a store better than both of those.