Metro Exodus for PC a timed exclusive for the Epic store (Steam preorders honoured, physical copy with Epic key). [READ staff post]

[Airbar]

That sounds like a great curator. I'd like to see something similar in English. Could I get a basic idea from this guy based on what he recommends and what he doesn't?

Honestly, the fact that the Epic store is partially run by a guy obsessed with tracking user data would be enough to turn me off of it even without all these exclusivity deals.

Click to shrink...

He basically recommends nothing lol. But he points out which metrics you can block. Like every second game he reviews is running things through Google's ad management and sometimes includes IP addresses and geolocations, MAC addresses and other similar stuff.
Most games these days track everything you do while playing them and immediately send these informations back to the homebase, be that Google, Amazon, Microsoft or some of the smaller fish.

 

[BlueOdin]

He basically recommends nothing lol. But he points out which metrics you can block. Like every second game he reviews is running things through Google's ad management and sometimes includes IP addresses and geolocations, MAC addresses and other similar stuff.
Most games these days track everything you do while playing them and immediately send these informations back to the homebase, be that Google, Amazon, Microsoft or some of the smaller fish.

Click to shrink...

Would you be able to link this curator?

 

[Airbar]

Would you be able to link this curator?

Click to shrink...

He's not a curator though. Just a user that analyzes what tracking services multiple games use.
But here it is

 

[XR.]

Three objections. First, PC gaming isn't console gaming. Various companies have attempted to force console-style business practices on PC and they always fail. Valve's success is based on the fact that Steam is a PC-focused service, offering functionality that PC users want. GOG, the second biggest service, is a PC-focused service offering a unique selling point that is important to PC users. Thw Windows Store has plenty of quality exclusives and no one is buying from it. Trying to find success on PC by treating it like a console will always end in failure.

Click to shrink...

I agree with you, PC gaming isn't console gaming. But that alone doesn't necessarily mean anything in and of itself. The reason Microsoft can't convince people to pay a fee to play online on PC is because it isn't a monopolized market--not because it's automatically immune to the concept. People will simply play through other means in order to avoid the fee.

This isn't really relevant in this context though, since gaming as a whole is not monopolized. Any company is free to launch their own console with exclusive products and services just as any company is free to launch their own launcher/store with exclusive products and services. There's nothing inherently wrong with paying for exclusives or selling the exclusive selling rights for your product. If this was a necessity good we would have a completely different debate at our hands, but this is a pure luxury item and no one owes you anything in terms of how you access it.

Second, there is a way for Epic to have exclusive content without moneyhatting. Develope original content for your service. Build studios, make games and sell them through the store. But again, that takes work, dedication and a long-term commitment. Are they willing to put in the work?

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Of course there are other ways of doing it, but why would they do differently and why should they?

I think the distinction here is entirely arbitrary. You're saying it's unacceptable for Epic to purchase exclusive selling rights, but if they change the deal and increase the payment to a point where they eventually own the whole game it's suddenly acceptable and people won't have any complaints about exclusivity, missing features or them being greedy.

I'm also curious, where exactly do we draw the line for what's acceptable? Funding the whole development of the game, or half? Or do you require them to own the studio, IP, game?

Third, exclusives for console are so hugely important because it costs hundreds of dollars to move to a different platform as a customer.

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We can certainly agree on that! Exclusives are more essential on consoles due to the financial barrier, but I think the the point still stands; there's no reason to migrate to a platform with no exclusives, even if it's identical to Steam or Playstation in terms of features and overall usability.

 

[Ionic]

You can't argue that Epic is piggybacking off of Steam making PC gaming bigger when Epic isn't necessarily targeting the people who have Steam accounts.

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Obviously one of Epic's big focuses is turning Fortnite players into more general game buyers, but you can't really argue they aren't going for the Steam marketshare too. They actively buy out games that were releasing on Steam to make them only release on their own store. Why would some young Fortnite player that doesn't use Steam and who's ready to try some different games care if Metro Exodus wasn't exclusive to the Epic Store but was also on Steam? They want Steam gamers because a lot of them actually buy games.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

I'm happy for 4A games going exclusive and getting a nice shot of $$ from Epic to help their studio out.

I pre-ordered on Steam, and my salt levels are not at all there, I'm truly bewildered at gamers getting so angry about this, and I'm actually cringe af ashamed of the review bombing that went on this last week, so juvenile and uncalled for.

That latest statement from 4A, about if it doesn't sell on PC then no PC next time, shows it really hurt them...and I'm ashamed of this, as a proud gamer.

 

[Armaros]

Obviously one of Epic's big focuses is turning Fortnite players into more general game buyers, but you can't really argue they aren't going for the Steam marketshare too. They actively buy out games that were releasing on Steam to make them only release on their own store. Why would some young Fortnite player that doesn't use Steam and who's ready to try some different games care if Metro Exodus wasn't exclusive to the Epic Store but was also on Steam? They want Steam gamers because a lot of them actually buy games.

Click to shrink...

Yes it's funny when people supporting Epic constantly bring that up, which goes counter to their actions.

Deliberately targeting games that Steam users might want in order to get them to move over.

If Epic has a massive trove of fortnite players that has never known Steam, they are spending all their efforts trying to go after Steam Users instead,

 

[MrBob]

Obviously one of Epic's big focuses is turning Fortnite players into more general game buyers, but you can't really argue they aren't going for the Steam marketshare too. They actively buy out games that were releasing on Steam to make them only release on their own store. Why would some young Fortnite player that doesn't use Steam and who's ready to try some different games care if Metro Exodus wasn't exclusive to the Epic Store but was also on Steam? They want Steam gamers because a lot of them actually buy games.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I've been struggling with the dueling narrative that the epic store is supposed to be so appealing because there is a huge built in Fortnite audience with the fact Epic is tossing money like crazy for exclusives. These two things don't really go together. If Epic could rely on a massive built in Fortnite audience to buy games from their store they would have no need for exclusives. The only real answer I can think of is Epic isn't fully confident they can convert the Fortnite audience to their store while they know the Steam audience buys tons of games.

 

[Armaros]

Yeah I've been struggling with the dueling narrative that the epic store is supposed to be so appealing because there is a huge built in Fortnite audience with the fact Epic is tossing money like crazy for exclusives. These two things don't really go together. If Epic could rely on a massive built in Fortnite audience to buy games from their store they would have no need for exclusives. The only real answer I can think of is Epic isn't fully confident they can convert the Fortnite audience to their store while they know the Steam audience buys tons of games.

Click to shrink...

IMO the fortnite players are main bait they show the developers and publishers to get to onto the store that there is a sizable population for their games already.

What their actions reveal is that they want to take as much of the Steam User base right now because they don't have my metics about if Fortnite players will covert into game buyers. And as you said, Steam users do buy games and everyone knows this.

 

[Lump]

Obviously one of Epic's big focuses is turning Fortnite players into more general game buyers, but you can't really argue they aren't going for the Steam marketshare too. They actively buy out games that were releasing on Steam to make them only release on their own store. Why would some young Fortnite player that doesn't use Steam and who's ready to try some different games care if Metro Exodus wasn't exclusive to the Epic Store but was also on Steam? They want Steam gamers because a lot of them actually buy games.

Click to shrink...

From a business perspective, it's sort of a required move - Fortnite is the biggest game now, but there's that possibility that the game is just a fad for most of its playerbase and that Epic can see a major decline in Fortnite revenue in a year or so. Do I personally believe it'll follow a WoW trajectory? Yes, it'll probably get more popular before a steady decline. Optimistically for Epic, it'll follow a LoL trajectory where it just keeps on growing, but it's too early to say that it'll achieve that. One doesn't really know for sure, and it's tough building a business around one single great cash cow where there's a possibility that 80% of its players will be over it by 2021 or 2022.

But a digital storefront - if they can pull that off now using all that immediate Fortnite revenue, now that's a business with legs. That's something that Epic can really make a 5, 10, maybe 15 year business plan on. It's not a given that it'll be successful, but it's damn well worth the effort and capital to try from Epic's point of view. And if their market differentiator is giving developers a bigger cut, that's just better for the industry in the long term - especially if they can get Steam to consider making their revenue model more attractive as well.

Early 2019 Epic Store isn't close to Steam in its features and is still lagging behind in regional support, but Epic does have the talent and plenty of capital to get it there (or at least damn close) in 12-18 months. And if they do, PC gaming will be better off when developers are keeping more of the revenue share.

 

[Armaros]

From a business perspective, it's sort of a required move - Fortnite is the biggest game now, but there's that possibility that the game is just a fad for most of its playerbase and that Epic can see a major decline in Fortnite revenue in a year or so. Do I personally believe it'll follow a WoW trajectory? Yes, it'll probably get more popular before a steady decline. Optimistically for Epic, it'll follow a LoL trajectory where it just keeps on growing, but it's too early to say that it'll achieve that. One doesn't really know for sure, and it's tough building a business around one single great cash cow where there's a possibility that 80% of its players will be over it by 2021 or 2022.

But a digital storefront - if they can pull that off now using all that immediate Fortnite revenue, now that's a business with legs. That's something that Epic can really make a 5, 10, maybe 15 year business plan on. It's not a given that it'll be successful, but it's damn well worth the effort and capital to try from Epic's point of view. And if their market differentiator is giving developers a bigger cut, that's just better for the industry in the long term - especially if they can get Steam to consider making their revenue model more attractive as well.

Early 2019 Epic Store isn't close to Steam in its features and is still lagging behind in regional support, but Epic does have the talent and plenty of capital to get it there (or at least damn close) in 12-18 months. And if they do, PC gaming will be better off when developers are keeping more of the revenue share.

Click to shrink...

They have done almost nothing proactively beside buying up exclusives.

So far every major consumer feature has been rushed due to criticism.

Saying Epic is behind Steam is an understatement, Epic is behind 2008 Steam much less 2019 Steam.

 

[Ionic]

IMO the fortnite players are main bait they show the developers and publishers to get to onto the store that there is a sizable population for their games already.

What their actions reveal is that they want to take as much of the Steam User base right now because they don't have my metics about if Fortnite players will covert into game buyers. And as you said, Steam users do buy games and everyone knows this.

Click to shrink...

I think they have a general idea of the conversion rate of Fortnite player to general game buyer. There's a 4 year old SteamSpy article Epic probably wishes was never written that talks about how the number of "core" game buyers who play a variety of games is quite small compared to the total number of people who play games. The top 1 percent of game players (1.3 mil accounts at the time) owned at least 104 games and had 33 percent of all games purchased. To make it into the top 20 percent (owning 88 percent of the total games sold), you only have to own 4 games. Most of the rest are those players playing a single game such as Dota 2.

To quote:

Various studies suggest that there are 700–800 million of PC gamers. It's probably true, but it doesn't mean much for your game. Because if you're developing a downloadable game for Steam you're not even fighting for 135M of its active users, you're fighting for the attention of 1.3 million gamers that are actually buying lots of games. The 1% group.

Click to shrink...

Epic currently has what are functionally Dota 2 players. They play a game. For their store they want players who play plural games. The kind of people who would buy a game like Ashen or Metro Exodus or Super Meatboy Forever. They may be telling devs how amazing it will be to be put on a pedestal in front of the Fortnite audience, but in reality they're betting their money on the more established buyers Valve cultivated with Steam. Honestly, I think if they want these people to play games they should just start giving every game exclusive Fortnite skins or whatever. It probably did wonders for getting free TF2 players to check out other things back in the day.

 

[Lothars]

Epic currently has what are functionally Dota 2 players. They play a game. For their store they want players who play plural games. The kind of people who would buy a game like Ashen or Metro Exodus or Super Meatboy Forever. They may be telling devs how amazing it will be to be put on a pedestal in front of the Fortnite audience, but in reality they're betting their money on the more established buyers Valve cultivated with Steam. Honestly, I think if they want these people to play games they should just start giving every game exclusive Fortnite skins or whatever. It probably did wonders for getting free TF2 players to check out other things back in the day.

Click to shrink...

that would be a very smart play and one that would benefit the Epic game store way more than them buying exclusivity for a year and it's one I don't see them doing anytime soon if ever.

 

[Armaros]

that would be a very smart play and one that would benefit the Epic game store way more than them buying exclusivity for a year and it's one I don't see them doing anytime soon if ever.

Click to shrink...

That would require them doing things like Valve, consumer focused. And considering how they go out of their way to compare themselves to Steam (ignoring all the myriad of ways they are deficient) I doubt they will do it.

Rather then throw money at everything to buy exclusives, they could buy content! Shocker.

 

[Lump]

They have done almost nothing proactively beside buying up exclusives.

So far every major consumer feature has been rushed due to criticism.

Saying Epic is behind Steam is an understatement, Epic is behind 2008 Steam much less 2019 Steam.

Click to shrink...

As long as Epic gets to 90%+ feature parity in a reasonable timeframe (which I would say is 12-18 months for a company like Epic just really getting serious about it), I don't care if they get there proactively or reactively as long as they get there.

 

[Ra]

I'm happy for 4A games going exclusive and getting a nice shot of $$ from Epic to help their studio out.

I pre-ordered on Steam, and my salt levels are not at all there, I'm truly bewildered at gamers getting so angry about this, and I'm actually cringe af ashamed of the review bombing that went on this last week, so juvenile and uncalled for.

That latest statement from 4A, about if it doesn't sell on PC then no PC next time, shows it really hurt them...and I'm ashamed of this, as a proud gamer.

Click to shrink...

I wonder how smug you'd be if you had missed out on the Steam preorder.

 

[scitek]

From a business perspective, it's sort of a required move - Fortnite is the biggest game now, but there's that possibility that the game is just a fad for most of its playerbase and that Epic can see a major decline in Fortnite revenue in a year or so. Do I personally believe it'll follow a WoW trajectory? Yes, it'll probably get more popular before a steady decline. Optimistically for Epic, it'll follow a LoL trajectory where it just keeps on growing, but it's too early to say that it'll achieve that. One doesn't really know for sure, and it's tough building a business around one single great cash cow where there's a possibility that 80% of its players will be over it by 2021 or 2022.

But a digital storefront - if they can pull that off now using all that immediate Fortnite revenue, now that's a business with legs. That's something that Epic can really make a 5, 10, maybe 15 year business plan on. It's not a given that it'll be successful, but it's damn well worth the effort and capital to try from Epic's point of view. And if their market differentiator is giving developers a bigger cut, that's just better for the industry in the long term - especially if they can get Steam to consider making their revenue model more attractive as well.

Early 2019 Epic Store isn't close to Steam in its features and is still lagging behind in regional support, but Epic does have the talent and plenty of capital to get it there (or at least damn close) in 12-18 months. And if they do, PC gaming will be better off when developers are keeping more of the revenue share.

Click to shrink...

I completely agree with this, and even said this pretty much point for point at the end of my podcast this week, but I don't agree with your last line. Unless we're talking about indie devs who self-publish, the only ones getting more money are publishers. I doubt 4A is getting anything extra from this deal.

 

[Sarcastico]

C'mon guys. It's not that hard to read up. My post was CLEARLY part of a discussion about PC game releases. The guy's follow up response even is in that vein.

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The point still stands. When it comes to PC development, Valve offers tools and technology that are more valuable than games, tools and technology that push the platform forward as a whole. They aren't just twiddling their thumbs in between game releases.

 

[Lothars]

As long as Epic gets to 90%+ feature parity in a reasonable timeframe (which I would say is 12-18 months for a company like Epic just really getting serious about it), I don't care if they get there proactively or reactively as long as they get there.

Click to shrink...

If they don't get 90% feature parity before the exclusivity is done for the games they have already bought than it won't matter especially if the only thing they have going for them is moneyhatting devs by taking games for a year. It's hard to believe they will put any effort in their store.

 

[XR.]

I completely agree with this, and even said this pretty much point for point at the end of my podcast this week, but I don't agree with your last line. Unless we're talking about indie devs who self-publish, the only ones getting more money are publishers. I doubt 4A is getting anything extra from this deal.

Click to shrink...

If the publisher isn't recognizing the money they received from Epic as a part of the total revenue made from game, I'd argue that's an issue isolated from the exclusivity itself. That's an issue with management rather than the deal.

 

[Bricktop]

YThe only real answer I can think of is Epic isn't fully confident they can convert the Fortnite audience to their store while they know the Steam audience buys tons of games.

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Is there any evidence that this is the case? I mean, in reality there is a very tiny minority of Steam users buying tons of games, and everyone else buying a game or two. The AVERAGE Steam user owns 11 games. I bet there isn't a person on this forum who uses Steam regularly who doesn't own at least 100 games and I know a few own over 1,000. Hell, a full third of the games bought on Steam are never even played.

The Steam audience as a whole doesn't buy "tons" of games, most of them own a few at most.

 

[MickeyKnox]

Is there any evidence that this is the case? I mean, in reality there is a very tiny minority of Steam users buying tons of games, and everyone else buying a game or two. The AVERAGE Steam user owns 11 games. I bet there isn't a person on this forum who uses Steam regularly who doesn't own at least 100 games and I know a few own over 1,000. Hell, a full third of the games bought on Steam are never even played.

The Steam audience as a whole doesn't buy "tons" of games, most of them own a few at most.

Click to shrink...

It ends up being a question of demographics and disposable income, the Fortnite userbase skews young, kids who are relying on parents to pay for their purchases, the steam user base is more likely to be of age to earn income. How that translates into purchasing habits across both platforms would require Epic to start surfacing data that they currently don't.

 

[Pixieking]

The Steam audience as a whole doesn't buy "tons" of games, most of them own a few at most.

Click to shrink...

And ownership isn't quite the same as purchasing anyway - how many people have bought a game bundle just for one game? How many people have forgotten to pause or cancel their Humble Monthly subscription and so end up with games registered to their account that they don't even particularly want? How many register a free game to their account simply because it's free?

 

[SteveWinwood]

Is there any evidence that this is the case? I mean, in reality there is a very tiny minority of Steam users buying tons of games, and everyone else buying a game or two. The AVERAGE Steam user owns 11 games. I bet there isn't a person on this forum who uses Steam regularly who doesn't own at least 100 games and I know a few own over 1,000. Hell, a full third of the games bought on Steam are never even played.

The Steam audience as a whole doesn't buy "tons" of games, most of them own a few at most.

Click to shrink...

so what you're saying is if they got the average steam user over to the epic store theyd own every game available on it

 

[Isee]

And if they do, PC gaming will be better off when developers are keeping more of the revenue share.

Click to shrink...

Steam is giving everybody a chance to publish their small game, this increased both the amount of good and bad games on PC. The problem isn't that there are only bad aset flips on Steam. The problem is that there are too many good games out there.

Take 2018, I've bought:

Into the Breach
Cuphead (Title from 2017)
Celeste
Vermintide 2
Ghost of a Tale (Title from 2017)
BattleTech
Mutant Year Zero
Divinity OS2 (2017)
Frostpunk
Battlefleet Gorhic Armada 2 (beta in 2018, release this January)

Those are just the specific games I like and I even had to skip some that I'm interested in like Surviving Mars, Frozen Synapse 2, Return of the Obra Dinn, Pillars of Eternity 2 or Phantom Doctrine! Because no way, I can play everything I want to. I already have to choose, especially if you factor in all the fantastic AAA games that came out last year like RE7, God of War (yes I also have consoles), Forza Horizon 4, Red Dead 2, Odyssey, Spiderman, MHW, FC5 etc.

My point is:
The EGS will have to open up, if it wants to grow. It's inevetible. Even it they, somehow magical, manage to only put on good games on their store. It will still be an over-saturation.

In the end, the EGS won't do any kind of wonders for indy devs once it opens up. If your good game can't get sales on steam, because there is to much good competition, it won't get sales on the EGS because the same kind of competition will be on there too. A better cut from nothing is still nothing. In the end only indy devs with some kind of brand recognition will be able to profit, a few lucky new ones, but the most profit will be made by publishers that are able to put some kind of marketing behind their developers. Worst case scenario: This will allow publishers to grow even bigger, put more weight into marketing, ultimately making life for true, new indy devs even harder.
Epic is using the 12% cut as honey to big publishers and those already "winning" indy devs. This doesn't mean a new golden era for indy development, the same games struggling on Steam in 2021 will struggle on the EGS in 2021, independent of their quality. We can make too many good choices atm. Take Pillars of eternity 2, I'm sure as hell it's a good game. But I had no time to play it and I'm not buying preemptively and the game is, apperently, struggeling. Which is sad!

Epics strategy here is very questionable:

Step 1: Give publishers more money, both from bribes and sales.
Step 2: Ly and make it sound like you are doing it for some kind of greater good ("We support indy devs!")
Step 3: Instead of also using honey on your future costumers, force them to come. Which lead to anger and bad PR.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit

 

[OutForTheNight2]

I'm happy for 4A games going exclusive and getting a nice shot of $$ from Epic to help their studio out.

I pre-ordered on Steam, and my salt levels are not at all there, I'm truly bewildered at gamers getting so angry about this, and I'm actually cringe af ashamed of the review bombing that went on this last week, so juvenile and uncalled for.

That latest statement from 4A, about if it doesn't sell on PC then no PC next time, shows it really hurt them...and I'm ashamed of this, as a proud gamer.

Click to shrink...

This honestly has to be a troll post because if not, then i have no hope

 

[Isee]

People praising epic for buying third party games are not realizing what other publishers will really learn here. If they don't need Steam, they don't need Epic as well. Why shouldn't Sega, 2k, THQ, Capcom, Bandai, WB not release their own, even more shitty store front, get a 100% cut and entirely control their "key" market? Marketing can still be done thanks to Twitch/YT and normal advertising on TV, Sites and Magazines. On the other side, if third party money-hatting doesn't work: Steam will become even more influential. It's kind of a strange situation tbh.

 

[MrBob]

Is there any evidence that this is the case? I mean, in reality there is a very tiny minority of Steam users buying tons of games, and everyone else buying a game or two. The AVERAGE Steam user owns 11 games. I bet there isn't a person on this forum who uses Steam regularly who doesn't own at least 100 games and I know a few own over 1,000. Hell, a full third of the games bought on Steam are never even played.

The Steam audience as a whole doesn't buy "tons" of games, most of them own a few at most.

Click to shrink...

I have no idea, I'm just speculating. But we know f2p audience doesn't mean increased sales of other games based off of Galyonkin when he talked about f2p gamers not really buying many other games. With the moves Epic are making, they seem to be targeting Steam customers. Probably because the Fortnite audience isn't a reliable audience for their store, while they can try to get steam whales to move over.

 

[Alexandros]

I agree with you, PC gaming isn't console gaming. But that alone doesn't necessarily mean anything in and of itself.

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It means that this difference is important to people and worth preserving. This is why Epic is facing suck backlash to their console-style moneyhatting.

There's nothing inherently wrong with paying for exclusives or selling the exclusive selling rights for your product. If this was a necessity good we would have a completely different debate at our hands, but this is a pure luxury item and no one owes you anything in terms of how you access it.

Click to shrink...

That is certainly an opinion and although I strongly disagree with it, I don't consider it an invalid one. The hypocrisy that I often see in such a matter-of-fact "it's just business" stance is that it only goes one way for people who believe it. Specifically, the publisher-developer way and not the customer way. Under that theory, publishers and developers are seemingly free to make business decisions that go against the interests of their customers but never the other way around.

So if you do want to talk in plain "it's just business" terms, I don't owe publishers and developers shit and I will express myself and spend my money any way I see fit. If developers really want the relationship with their customers to be a strictly business one, it means that I don't have to care about storefront cuts, crunch periods, publisher pressure, mass layoffs, the developers' livelihood and working conditions. Games are products, developers are cogs in the machine that makes them and I don't give a rat's ass what happens to them as long as I get the product I want. It's just business.

Tell me now. Does the above sound good to you? Because there is a huge contradiction in saying that customers should care about developers while simultaneously shutting down criticism with "it's just business".

I think the distinction here is entirely arbitrary. You're saying it's unacceptable for Epic to purchase exclusive selling rights, but if they change the deal and increase the payment to a point where they eventually own the whole game it's suddenly acceptable and people won't have any complaints about exclusivity, missing features or them being greedy.

Click to shrink...

It's not such a difficult puzzle. It's the distinction between "I want your business so I produced this piece of original content you can't get anywhere else" vs "I want your business so I paid off the creators of this already existing content to not sell it anywhere else". Paying to create something vs paying to withhold something.

 

[Madjoki]

Yeah I've been struggling with the dueling narrative that the epic store is supposed to be so appealing because there is a huge built in Fortnite audience with the fact Epic is tossing money like crazy for exclusives. These two things don't really go together. If Epic could rely on a massive built in Fortnite audience to buy games from their store they would have no need for exclusives. The only real answer I can think of is Epic isn't fully confident they can convert the Fortnite audience to their store while they know the Steam audience buys tons of games.

Click to shrink...

This image from Galyonkin really illustrates that well:

This isn't even paid games, Steam profile shows f2p games too, you've installed.
So Fortnite audience is useless. I would imagine it has even more uselss as Fortnite audience is pretty young and Metro Exodus is rated 18+.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

This honestly has to be a troll post because if not, then i have no hope

Click to shrink...

No troll, your hope has faded.

I pre-ordered on Steam, now will be playing on Epic, I just don't see the big deal at all...not one little bit.

As a reference: I looooove my Steam library of games, but I also like/love my GOG/Origin/Uplay/Epic/Bliz/Beth hosted games too...I see them as launchers, not much more. I have around 400 Steam games, lots of achievements and stuff, but I was ok with the client being moved over to Epic for this game - being a single player game too....I don't see what the problem is, at all.

Epic has the biggest game in the world right now, makes sense they'd want to jump on some market share, business wise at least.

 

[BernardoOne]

We take Games from the corrupt, the rich, the opressors of a generation that kept you down for a generation with myths of opportunity and give it back to you... the devs. Games are yours, do as you please. None shall interfere.But start by storming Steam and freeing the opressed! Valve will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Higher cuts will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The consumers will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great industry...it will endure. Games will survive!

 

[neon_dream]

This image from Galyonkin really illustrates that well:

This isn't even paid games, Steam profile shows f2p games too, you've installed.
So Fortnite audience is useless. I would imagine it has even more uselss as Fortnite audience is pretty young and Metro Exodus is rated 18+.

Click to shrink...

I don't understand this graph.

What are the axes?

 

[eonden]

I don't understand this graph.

What are the axes?

Click to shrink...

X bar is the total number of games they own in Steam (mind you, they can also count F2P, so it wont be so precise). The population is also grouped in concrete groups (that is 1-5 games in Dota 2, CS:Go and Rocket League).

Y bar is the % of the population in that group. (Which you could consider the total population just scaled into a % to make comparisons easier).

For instance, 70% of Dota players have between 1-5 games.
We can see from this data that both Dota is very top heavy, CS:Go not as much (as I think the 50% total poopulation would be at around 1-20 games). Not sure why Torchlight 2 is there if we consider the amount of bvundles it has been in.

The average is how many games people own in average when they have Dota2. I dont think using average in this kind of games is a good idea, as some outliers could put the number way higher than it should. Dota 2 for instance where 70% of the population had tops 5 games and the average is 12. He should have used percentiles (50 percentile/ median, 60 percentile, ...)

 

[neon_dream]

X bar is the total number of games they own in Steam (mind you, they can also count F2P, so it wont be so precise). The population is also grouped in concrete groups (that is 1-5 games in Dota 2, CS:Go and Rocket League).

Y bar is the % of the population in that group. (Which you could consider the total population just scaled into a % to make comparisons easier).

For instance, 70% of Dota players have between 1-5 games.
We can see from this data that both Dota is very top heavy, CS:Go not as much (as I think the 50% total poopulation would be at around 1-20 games). Not sure why Torchlight 2 is there if we consider the amount of bvundles it has been in.

The average is how many games people own in average when they have Dota2. I dont think using average in this kind of games is a good idea, as some outliers could put the number way higher than it should. Dota 2 for instance where 70% of the population had tops 5 games and the average is 12. He should have used percentiles (50 percentile/ median, 60 percentile, ...)

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I see. So are we drawing the conclusion that people into large multiplayer games don't tend to buy many other games? Hence Fortniters probalby won't either?

 

[eonden]

I see. So are we drawing the conclusion that people into large multiplayer games don't tend to buy many other games? Hence Fortniters probalby won't either?

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That was Galy conclusion and it has been true for a long time. Games that require a lot of time investment such as MMOs and F2P, normally have their population quite "captive" and do not play a lot of other games.

Edit: for instance a lot of the WOW base was a pretty "one game only" gamer. So it is not a new thing. We are also starting to see it more and more in the console market with the rise of GAAS.

 

[neon_dream]

That was Galy conclusion and it has been true for a long time. Games that require a lot of time investment such as MMOs and F2P, normally have their population quite "captive" and do not play a lot of other games.

Edit: for instance a lot of the WOW base was a pretty "one game only" gamer. So it is not a new thing. We are also starting to see it more and more in the console market with the rise of GAAS.

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That's a reasonable conclusion, absolutely. Anyone who's played a multiplayer game like that knows it.

Anyway, thanks for helping me understand the graph.

 

[Paul]

I'm happy for 4A games going exclusive and getting a nice shot of $$ from Epic to help their studio out.

I pre-ordered on Steam, and my salt levels are not at all there, I'm truly bewildered at gamers getting so angry about this, and I'm actually cringe af ashamed of the review bombing that went on this last week, so juvenile and uncalled for.

That latest statement from 4A, about if it doesn't sell on PC then no PC next time, shows it really hurt them...and I'm ashamed of this, as a proud gamer.

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Yes you should be ashamed of cheerleading for anti-customer corporate behavior for sure.

 

[texhnolyze]

I see. So are we drawing the conclusion that people into large multiplayer games don't tend to buy many other games? Hence Fortniters probalby won't either?

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Yes.

Here in my country, and many other ones in Asia, F2P MMOs and mobile games are pretty big. People play them and enjoy them, and at some point they will start spending some money. That said, it doesn't mean that they're willing to buy actual games. It's just different. I have friends who have spent hundreds of dollars (converted) on F2P games, but they still refuse to buy games. These people value money per hours of play so much. If they can play for free and maybe spend some money as they see fit, why should they buy games that they can finish in several hours and be done with it.

 

[eonden]

That's a reasonable conclusion, absolutely. Anyone who's played a multiplayer game like that knows it.

Anyway, thanks for helping me understand the graph.

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No problem, sometimes this type of charts are had to understand.

Also, even if something is "common knowledge" such as this case, it is important to have some proof behind it, as it is not strange for the "common knowledge" to be based on faulty data. His conclusion makes sense and is well founded. What would be moreinteresting would be a further analysis of how to transform those kind of players into other games. Which will be even more important with the rise of GAAS and more time-demanding games.

Yes.

Here in my country, and many other ones in Asia, F2P MMOs and mobile games are pretty big. People play them and enjoy them, and at some point they will start spending some money. That said, it doesn't mean that they're willing to buy actual games. It's just different. I have friends who have spent hundreds of dollars (converted) on F2P games, but they still refuse to buy games. These people value money per hours of play so much. If they can play for free and maybe spend some money as they see fit, why should they buy games that they can finish in several hours and be done with it.

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To be honest, as a society we are normally always taught to think about the value of something in a money basis. That goes with most of the normal goods. Hell, we saw that last gen where everything added MP to add that "infinite value" or this gen with more open world designs to add much more replayability. In the end, the consumer has a limited pool of money and chooses games he thinks will give him the most "total fun" in the end, sometimes disregarding the actual level of "fun" he would be having each hour.
Which is an issue because people consider money a more important resource than time.

 

[Deleted member 5864]

We take Games from the corrupt, the rich, the opressors of a generation that kept you down for a generation with myths of opportunity and give it back to you... the devs. Games are yours, do as you please. None shall interfere.But start by storming Steam and freeing the opressed! Valve will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Higher cuts will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The consumers will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great industry...it will endure. Games will survive!

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LMAO

 

[SteveWinwood]

I'm happy for 4A games going exclusive and getting a nice shot of $$ from Epic to help their studio out.

I pre-ordered on Steam, and my salt levels are not at all there, I'm truly bewildered at gamers getting so angry about this, and I'm actually cringe af ashamed of the review bombing that went on this last week, so juvenile and uncalled for.

That latest statement from 4A, about if it doesn't sell on PC then no PC next time, shows it really hurt them...and I'm ashamed of this, as a proud gamer.

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you should be ashamed of saying "proud gamer" unironically

 

[RadioactiveLobster]

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqq1h9

The recent decision to move Metro Exodus from Steam to the Epic Game Store was made by Koch Media / Deep Silver alone.

The recent comments made by a member of the 4A Games development team do not reflect Deep Silver's or 4A Games' view on the future of the franchise. They do reflect the hurt and disappointment of a passionate individual who has seen what was previously nothing but positive goodwill towards his work turn to controversy due to a business decision he had no control over. We respectfully ask that any and all valid feedback over this decision is directed at Koch Media / Deep Silver, and not the developers at 4A Games.

The future release strategy of the Metro series lies with Koch Media / Deep Silver. Our decision to partner with Epic Games was based on the goal of investing in the future of the series and our development partner at 4A Games. We have every intention of continuing this franchise, and a PC version will always be at the heart of our plans.

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[Detail]

This happened to me too, my account was created to play Paragon, when fortnite exploded I got every fucking day mail about login attempts, had to wait 2 months from the support to get my account deleted.

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Yeah, exact same thing happened to me, everyday about 4-5 times about login attempts, spamming the hell out of my email and it took them 3+ months to shut my account.

I don't think they are ready to provide a store front tbh.

 

[MrCunningham]

1.) It's not 4A that is getting the extra money. It's DeepSilver and ultimately THQ shareholders. Hurray!
2.) At best 4A won't notice a difference in their salaries. At worst they'll miss out on bonuses if there are any and they are bound to sale numbers.
(It's probably the former)
3.) Steam still has a larger user base then epic, so this argument doesn't hold up. Especially if you count in china that doesn't get the game now at all. And if you don't understand how big of a market china is... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4.) The cut between Epic and DeepSilver/Kochmedia is 88-12. Unless you have any kind of numbers how much money epic used to bribe them and what the estimated sales figures are.

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My mistake. I thought this was an A4 decision. Kinda a shitty move from the shareholders, I can understand it from their point of view. It is a money grab and nothing more. But it does mess up the release structure of not putting this game on Valves platform on day one. With the rising popularity of the Epics Game Client thanks to Fortnites massive popularity. It doesn't take much to convince anyone to install it. Kinda funny about the Chinese market, because one of Epics biggest shareholders is a Chinese company. But I guess the Epic game store is not available in that region? I have no idea.

Under other circumstances, I would not snub the idea of pushing a game on the Epic game store, just to take advantage of that larger royalty. I'm generally for whatever puts more money into the pockets of the developers, within reason that it does not rip off the consumers. So initially I thought this was a good idea. But I did write my last post before reading through the whole thread and understanding that this was a shit deal from shareholders. Like you said, they are not doing anything illegal. It's just a cash grab, as I said above.

 

[Ivory Samoan]

you should be ashamed of saying "proud gamer" unironically

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Chortle, yeah ok.

Additionally, the statement from 4A today (Metro-game) was perfection, and I LOVE how they still backed their dev who spoke out, albeit in a low key fashion.

Once again I state firm and clear: this is small fish in the scheme of things, having to use the EGS for Exodus should in no way be reason to throw all the toys and attack 4A directly as was done in many, many circles (glances scornfully at Reddit most of all). Trying to destroy review averages for hard working devs in a juvenile pitchfork mob is unseemly, and just plain yuck.

It's not cool to be yuck.

 

[Pixieking]

Chortle, yeah ok.

Additionally, the statement from 4A today (Metro-game) was perfection, and I LOVE how they still backed their dev who spoke out, albeit in a low key fashion.

Once again I state firm and clear: this is small fish in the scheme of things, having to use the EGS for Exodus should in no way be reason to throw all the toys and attack 4A directly as was done in many, many circles (glances scornfully at Reddit most of all). Trying to destroy review averages for hard working devs in a juvenile pitchfork mob is unseemly, and just plain yuck.

It's not cool to be yuck.

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Good lord...

It's not about this one game. Not really. It's about:

1) A company seeing fit to use Valve/Steam as a free PR/marketing machine only to then turn around, remove the game from Steam - thus preventing people who really only use Steam from buying it for a year - and have a timed exclusivity deal with another store where there's a minimum of features.
2) It's also about the precedent. Not just the precedent in 1, where a company has essentially abused Valve's goodwill and store features, but also the precedent of third-party games being exclusively sold on a store where there is a minimum of price competition, and also the precedent that third-party games can be bought-out as exclusives on PC. This is literally turning the PC market into the console one, and if we could all go back 10/15/20 years and have no third-party exclusives in the console market, I think we would all choose that. No, it's not an exact analogy because of hardware purchasing, but the concept of paying money to a third-party company for exclusivity is the same. For pubs/devs, it's a very similar situation, even if, for the consumer, it's quite different.
3) If you think 1 (and to an extent 2) is just paranoia/throwing a tanty, have a read of this: http://robf.punchingrobots.club/index.php/2019/01/30/fairness/ I linked to it a few days ago, and it really points-up how Epic, pubs/devs and the Metro Exodus deal could screw over pubs and devs in the long-term.

Edit: Via the PC Gaming thread: https://www.spieltimes.com/news/met...re-epic-games-exclusivity-production-process/

It was after E3 2018 when 4A Games was informed about the Epic Games Store exclusivity. Metro Exodus was still a game for Steam in terms of development before that time of period. "Well after that(E3 2018), that's all I can say", my source confirmed.

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Now, this can be read two different ways. After as in "some time after", or after as in "just after".

 

[Serious Sam]

Chortle, yeah ok.

Additionally, the statement from 4A today (Metro-game) was perfection, and I LOVE how they still backed their dev who spoke out, albeit in a low key fashion.

Once again I state firm and clear: this is small fish in the scheme of things, having to use the EGS for Exodus should in no way be reason to throw all the toys and attack 4A directly as was done in many, many circles (glances scornfully at Reddit most of all). Trying to destroy review averages for hard working devs in a juvenile pitchfork mob is unseemly, and just plain yuck.

It's not cool to be yuck.

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So you preordered a better Steam version and not the EGS version. Yet you talk about how EGS will be fine (presumebly without having any first hand experience with it). You talk down people who want to do the same as you did, they just want a choice to buy the Steam version. Can you get any more hypocritical?

 

[Valdega]

Epic has straight up come out and said most of the people who downloaded and use the Epic Launcher don't have steam accounts. They're kids who downloaded it for Fortnite. You can't argue that Epic is piggybacking off of Steam making PC gaming bigger when Epic isn't necessarily targeting the people who have Steam accounts.

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When you pay publishers and developers to not sell their games on Steam, you're very clearly targeting Steam users. Epic knows that the vast majority of Fortnite players are not premium consumers. They aren't going to spend money on games that aren't Fortnite. Steam users, on the other hand, have proven that they will. The first two Metro games were on Steam so it's safe to assume that most Metro fans have Steam accounts.

 

[Kareha]

Just out of curiosity who has more money valve or epic? Who could play this awful money-hatting game for longer?

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Valve is a private company so nobody really knows.