Of course it's irrelevant. How is the Fortnite players on PS4/Switch/Xbox One/iOS/Android a relevant number to EGS ?
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Realistically, how do you see this whole Epic Games Store thing ending? (Read OP)
- Thread starter Plum
- Start date
Of course it's irrelevant. How is the Fortnite players on PS4/Switch/Xbox One/iOS/Android a relevant number to EGS ?
Don't see them toppling the market before the Fortnite money runs out.
How do you even keep enough titles off of Steam to make this work? Yeah you can target high profile games for timed exclusivity, but what about all the AA/AAA devs and pubs who need to hit Steam to reach its massive audience to recoup their investment? What about all those sleeper hit games that come from nowhere and do massive numbers (ironically, like Fortnite).
It's just not going to work. To me the only question is whether they settle in as a B tier game store, that slowly works towards feature parity but ends up like Origin or Uplay, or whether they totally implode because their revenue from Fortnite's crazy highs recedes and they've got massive cash flow problems.
How do you even keep enough titles off of Steam to make this work? Yeah you can target high profile games for timed exclusivity, but what about all the AA/AAA devs and pubs who need to hit Steam to reach its massive audience to recoup their investment? What about all those sleeper hit games that come from nowhere and do massive numbers (ironically, like Fortnite).
It's just not going to work. To me the only question is whether they settle in as a B tier game store, that slowly works towards feature parity but ends up like Origin or Uplay, or whether they totally implode because their revenue from Fortnite's crazy highs recedes and they've got massive cash flow problems.
I think it's presumptive to assume that the huge numbers of Fortnite players will just stay exclusive to Fortnite forever, or won't go looking for other games. As many exclusive games as Epic is buying out, it is only a matter of time before one of them hits big and hits hard.
Steam, Origin, Uplay, and Battle.Net were built on the back of franchises that were far less popular than Fortnite, so I don't see why Epic can't build a service around Fortnite. On some level it depends on if Epic is developing other big 1st party exclusives for EGS..... but given how much money they are throwing around I would bet that they are. In retrospect it's foolish that EA and Ubisoft and Blizzard didn't open up to other developers; they probably could have blown up faster if they did. Epic is looking to expose that vulnerability.
You guys really are pulling out all kinds of mental gymnastics.
Simple Google Search found Article said:
Simple Google Search found Article said:
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/fortnite-statistics/
Even if we say just 10% of the 250 million are active PC players, that's still 25 million.
This is a dumb argument to have.
It's not unfair to say that people that love Fortnite are likely to browse the launcher that also sells products. As a result, they have a pretty decent sized audience. Go be silly elsewhere.
Literally, all I'm saying is that the audience playing Fortnite on PC and will likely start playing on PC, if they aren't already, ISN'T IRRELEVANT. I'm not even saying it's Super Relevant, just that it can't be ignored. Calm yourselves, your disingenuous responses aren't fooling anyone.
Aren't streamers / Influencers also supposed to eventually get up to an additional 8% cut (separate from EGS's 12%) on game sales, or something like that?
Question 1: Will Epic stop buying exclusives and, if not, to what extent will they keep doing it?
Yes, it is not a viable solution long term. They need to grow to a certain number of users and games.
Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?
They might lower it by 5%. Epic might increase it 5%.
Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?
Yes, this is known and they will.
Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?
Yes, they have the cash and they seem to have the will for it.
Yes, it is not a viable solution long term. They need to grow to a certain number of users and games.
Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?
They might lower it by 5%. Epic might increase it 5%.
Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?
Yes, this is known and they will.
Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?
Yes, they have the cash and they seem to have the will for it.
Where did you get 10% from? Did you just make it up?
I gather it's supposed to be optional, and a sliding scale rather than a fixed percentage, but yes the idea is that in order to promote games, publishers will just offer a percentage of sales to streamers, and that's how EGS intends for games to get promoted.
How is it a dumb argument ?
You adressed it yourself !
10% of 250M isn't the same.
Throwing the word "Fortnite userbase" is disingenuous because it's not an overlapping userbase. The only relevant number is the PC userbase of Fortnite.
Would Epic be happy with such an outcome? No one buys third-party games on Origin and uPlay and Epic doesn't have a first-party lineup that they can keep 100% from.
Kinda sounds like their future cut increase right there. Once thry get more games on the store, you gotta pay a bigger cut if you want any marketing.
On the topic of influencers though, maybe Steam should persue some more of that advertising too? Something like if people buy a Steam game through an affiliate link to Steam, they get some small amount of money per sale through it. It wouldn't even simply be less money going to Valve because this would also be resulting in more sales on Steam compared to key resellers, meaning more money for them and additional Influencer advertising for games for devs.
I feel like this is kind of an X-Factor, since so many 1st party stores never tried to expand their audience to 3rd party titles. Origin never blew up because they were stuck waiting on EA's lethargic output, but EGS is not operating with the same handicap. We don't really know what will happen with a heavily backed store that has the support of indies and AAA devs. I think it is fair to say though that unless the royalty structure on Steam gets significantly reconfigured, the exodus of AAA devs will continue.
But developers and publishers are not supporting Epic store.
They are supporting getting a big bag of money upfront from Epic.
I'd say that developer and publisher support will not be enough. EGS needs some way to pull in customers.
As I have said, I think the big AAA devs are pretty much done with Steam regardless of whether or not Epic keeps handing out checks. It's really just a matter of Epic's ability to offer the user base and sales and royalty rate to keep them from going completely exclusive to their self-made distro platforms. I think Epic are in a pretty good place with indies though, since those devs can't build their own platforms easily.
EA did actually try having third party games on Origin. Hell, you can buy games like Darksiders 3, Far Cry 5, and the Arkham games on Origin right now among many others.
Ubisoft also did the same thing around half a decade ago having titles like Magicka, Mass Effect, Crusader Kings, etc, but it appears they've stopped selling third party games some time since.
The difference I suppose with Epic is that they're looking to build the store exclusively with third party content as they don't have an expansive catalog of their own published games (well, they do, but for some reason they aren't interested in putting their legacy titles up).
Bethesda just came back to Steam with RAGE 2, their Wolfenstein games and DOOM Eternal (and Fallout 76). Destiny 2 is leaving Battle.net and coming to Steam. Microsoft will bring their new AAA games like Halo, Gears etc. to Steam
AAA devs know that Steam gives them the most sales. Don't see any big AAA dev like Capcom leaving Steam and going to EGS
edit: Also how are all the games only timed exclusive if they are "done with Steam". In some cases like Borderlands 3 only for 6 months
I think the stream of well positioned exclusives, generous amounts of free games, alongside the gradual addition of accessibility features to the launcher program will make EGS a legitimate competitor with a real shot at becoming the #1 digital marketplace on pc in the West. I think it's success will lend credence to other companies to give it a good shot at making their own launcher/storefront app.
I don't agree AAA devs will still put their game on steam and unless epic is paying the indies to put their title on egs, I don't see them exclusively putting games on it.
I think they have a chance to beat Steam if this whole Fortnite craze can last...two, three years more? That's two or three years of exclusivities and free games every week to entice people, plus additional time to improve the client while EGS is still constantly on the news. No way they can even go head to head with Steam if the exclusivity push and free games only last till the end of this year.
They can't because how EGS is currently structured and how backend works. Apparently it would be either adding UT2004 or releasing patch for Hades or adding some latest exclusivity to store for that 3-4 day window.
Backend and how it's managed when it comes to adding content to EGS is shitshow.
I think Epic will continue pushing EGS for a year or two and then basically give up on it after it fails to supplant Steam. This will happen even faster once Fortnite dies and they lose their primary source of moneyhat funding.
All the noise surrounding the reduced cut is just BS. Even if Steam lowered their cut to 8%, Epic would still pay for timed exclusives. Their goal is to become the market leader in PC digital distribution. Offering a larger cut is simply part of their strategy for achieving that. EGS is currently bleeding money as Epic tries to gain market share and they'll want to start making money at some point.
It's also worth noting that a key reason for EGS' existence is to boost Unreal Engine adoption. With AAA publishers almost exclusively relying on their own internal engines and indie devs relying on Unity, UE has been in a rough spot this gen. By removing UE royalties for games sold on EGS, Epic hopes to increase UE licensing for indie and AA developers. If UE licensing doesn't see meaningful growth after EGS has been out for a while, there will be even less reason for Epic to continue putting resources into EGS.
All the noise surrounding the reduced cut is just BS. Even if Steam lowered their cut to 8%, Epic would still pay for timed exclusives. Their goal is to become the market leader in PC digital distribution. Offering a larger cut is simply part of their strategy for achieving that. EGS is currently bleeding money as Epic tries to gain market share and they'll want to start making money at some point.
It's also worth noting that a key reason for EGS' existence is to boost Unreal Engine adoption. With AAA publishers almost exclusively relying on their own internal engines and indie devs relying on Unity, UE has been in a rough spot this gen. By removing UE royalties for games sold on EGS, Epic hopes to increase UE licensing for indie and AA developers. If UE licensing doesn't see meaningful growth after EGS has been out for a while, there will be even less reason for Epic to continue putting resources into EGS.
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Oh, it's definitely not sustainable. They're floating EGS with Fortnite money, which will run out at SOME point - it's just a matter of when. And even if it doesn't, how long until EGS is actually profitable with their current strategy? They must have a real loooooooong term plan, because it just doesn't make sense any other way I can slice it. I'd like to see an actual economist extrapolate their strategy.
I can only see one logical endgame that Epic themselves envision with their strategy. They buy up a captive audience by buying exclusive after exclusive, until the store has enough of an audience that they don't need to anymore, and publishers will choose to publish there. The darker alternative is that they insist games published on EGS can't come out anywhere else for a while. But the amount of money they'd have to throw around to actually drive competitors out of business seems out of reach even for Epic.
Whatever they see as the endgame, the exclusivity is annoying, as I don't want to help them drive their competitors out of business with the practice, so I'm just not gonna buy any games on there.
The biggest question regarding the future of EGS and its place in the market is this: what is the reason for preferring to buy a game on EGS over another platform? If Epic is to become a third-party game distributor like Steam, that question will have to be answered. Is Epic's plan to eventually entice customers with something else beyond "you can only buy this game from us" or is it to pick up 40 exclusives each year and hope to make money off of those?
This was always me theory...because on a case by case basis, these deals can't be making any money. Takes me back to my original point, wonder what their game plan is to keep these users. It's not like with consoles where after a customer invest in plastic, they'll now buy 3rd party content from the ecosystem until the end of the gen.
I haven't been gaming on PC for over a decade but looking for the right window to jump back. From this distance, don't hate that Steam could gain real competition that sends some profit back to developers. I'm just not sure this is a good strategy to accomplish that. All they've done is create negative mindshare while demonstrating their store is inferior. Don't see where the stickiness comes in. In my mind, Epic made a huge mistake in that they didn't create a platform with any competitive advantages for consumers before forcing consumers to try it out.
You say that like it applies to most transactions in the EU, when it reportedly actually impacts less than 1% of transactions in places like China and Russia.
1. Yes, they will keep going at this pace until Valve leaves the market.
2. Doesn't matter. EGS supporters will find some other tenuously reasoned basis about why it's better.
3. Nope. They have no reason to, and have demonstrated that they'd prefer to fracture the market rather than actually try to improve anything.
4. As long as Fortnite makes them money and/or Tencent is in the games business, absolutely.
Basically, they're going to keep doing what they've been doing until they have the entire market, at which point their service will get even worse. I see no reason why they should stop or improve.
2. Doesn't matter. EGS supporters will find some other tenuously reasoned basis about why it's better.
3. Nope. They have no reason to, and have demonstrated that they'd prefer to fracture the market rather than actually try to improve anything.
4. As long as Fortnite makes them money and/or Tencent is in the games business, absolutely.
Basically, they're going to keep doing what they've been doing until they have the entire market, at which point their service will get even worse. I see no reason why they should stop or improve.
Bigger businesses are mostly choosing Steam as they are trying to sell their games to the biggest user base on the most mature market (Ubisoft is the notable exception but Epic is letting them use their own launcher too, so they're a bit of a wild card anyway)
Full stop, smaller studios are choosing Epic mainly because they don't know how to market their game to a broader audience effectively, and they want to eliminate risk knowing that they're capping their full sales potential.
With that being the case, it's hard to imagine that the status quo will change too much. Eventually Epic will stop being able to give cash incentives to buy exclusive deals and Valve will keep on rolling as normal. They *may* offer some studios better rates down the line but for now they can be pretty conservative with their strategy.
I don't think you can make a compelling business case for Epic's behavior. They're trying to make Valve panic, and their bluff has been called. The only winners here are the indies who took the cash bonuses, don't really care about growing their business, and managed to stay under-the-radar enough to not be harassed by toxic gamers defending their PC's honor or whatever excuse they use to be terrible to other people.
Epic's going to have to consider actually competing in this "feature war" they want to avoid so badly if they're serious about this whole market share thing.
Full stop, smaller studios are choosing Epic mainly because they don't know how to market their game to a broader audience effectively, and they want to eliminate risk knowing that they're capping their full sales potential.
With that being the case, it's hard to imagine that the status quo will change too much. Eventually Epic will stop being able to give cash incentives to buy exclusive deals and Valve will keep on rolling as normal. They *may* offer some studios better rates down the line but for now they can be pretty conservative with their strategy.
I don't think you can make a compelling business case for Epic's behavior. They're trying to make Valve panic, and their bluff has been called. The only winners here are the indies who took the cash bonuses, don't really care about growing their business, and managed to stay under-the-radar enough to not be harassed by toxic gamers defending their PC's honor or whatever excuse they use to be terrible to other people.
Epic's going to have to consider actually competing in this "feature war" they want to avoid so badly if they're serious about this whole market share thing.
I would imagine that it will merge with WeGame as soon as the stream of Fortnite money slows down and sales of third party games haven't picked up enough
I think it's already at an acceptable level of success for them to keep on keeping on with it.
Market dominance of the kind Steam enjoyed isn't in the cards, but it was never really on the table in the first place. EGS isn't giving out free games and paying for timed exclusives to run Steam out of business, which is a good thing, because it's unsustainable. They're doing it to get that client on as many PCs as possible. Once they've opened the door to people using their client as a launcher or spending money on it, they're competing like any other storefront, like how Gamestop competes with Best Buy. On the niceness of the store front and return policy and other features, of course, but mostly on price. EGS may even be able to get devs to agree to a lower sales price than they would otherwise because they're keeping more of the proceeds.
In the end, EGS settles in as the junior partner in a duopolistic arrangement occasionally served by other niche players. Their marketshare ends at... 80/20? 70/30? In favor of Steam, but there's so much money here that a 20% marketshare makes an obscene amount of money. Epic doesn't take over the world, but they succeed at their primary goal, which is is creating a revenue stream that will long outlast the Fortnite phenomenon.
Market dominance of the kind Steam enjoyed isn't in the cards, but it was never really on the table in the first place. EGS isn't giving out free games and paying for timed exclusives to run Steam out of business, which is a good thing, because it's unsustainable. They're doing it to get that client on as many PCs as possible. Once they've opened the door to people using their client as a launcher or spending money on it, they're competing like any other storefront, like how Gamestop competes with Best Buy. On the niceness of the store front and return policy and other features, of course, but mostly on price. EGS may even be able to get devs to agree to a lower sales price than they would otherwise because they're keeping more of the proceeds.
In the end, EGS settles in as the junior partner in a duopolistic arrangement occasionally served by other niche players. Their marketshare ends at... 80/20? 70/30? In favor of Steam, but there's so much money here that a 20% marketshare makes an obscene amount of money. Epic doesn't take over the world, but they succeed at their primary goal, which is is creating a revenue stream that will long outlast the Fortnite phenomenon.
I'm not sure how EGS could be considered even remotely successful. There's no way it's profitable. Between the reduced cut, limited selection, exclusivity deals, free games and $10 discount on every game in the last sale, Epic has surely lost a ton of money trying to expand their market share. This isn't an unusual tactic. Amazon does it all the time. However, Amazon actually provides a customer-centric service and gives people reasons to use it in addition to lower prices. Epic hasn't caught on to that part yet.
Epic's long-term revenue stream is engine licensing. That was their bread and butter for 20 years until Fortnite came out. However, it took a major hit this gen when AAA publishers started focusing on their own engines and Unity rose to prominence in the indie and AA markets. That's why Epic created EGS. If you license UE and sell your game on EGS, you get a 92% cut. Epic is counting on that to attract developers to UE. It's also the reason why they don't give a shit about EGS customers. EGS customers don't license engines.
Offering better and more competitive prices is up to publishers / developers. Epic isn't going to offer them from their 12% cut and expect publishers / developers to trickle it down from their 88%. Along with influencer marketing fees.
I honestly feel like steam will eventually concede to epic possibly after valve suffers a massive blow to their trading market which I feel has a good potential to crash in the future. That said epic will probably be content complete sooner or later and folks will be able to use the store like they use valve without issue. It will probably be there years down the line if not later rather than sooner due to how epic is pushing to build it's roster.
That list tells you what payment processors have additional fees. It doesn't tell you how commonly they are used. We know from that page it is a fraction of 20%. Other statements that have been made by Epic suggest it is far below that. And yet you present it as if this effects the majority of EU customers when it clearly does not.
Not likely, when feature parity isn't the only complaint. Epic poaching games from other stores and their weirdly selective agenda against Valve would still be an issue even if EGS was a better launcher than Steam, and it's the reason I won't use it. The only people that should look back and feel embarrassed are those taking things too far with retaliatory actions (harassment of devs, for example).
Point of my post was that EGS transfers payment method fees to end consumer (which they do, e.g. Paysafe Card is payment method even if not used by majority) as they have processing fees that EGS doesn't cover. In comparison Valve covers processing fees of payment methods. If I'm wrong about that and they transfer fees let me know, just haven't heard about it or walked into info about such transfer.
At how large scale such transference happens is arguing semantics of my overall point.
I think it will completely depend on Fortnite's longevity.
I'd be surprised if EGS is even close to being profitable with the money they are spending to try and grow it.
If the next big thing comes and usurps Fortnite within the next 2 years I predict it will settle into GOG like popularity.
If they can keep the V-Bucks train rolling for 5+ years and keep the current kids interested in either Fortnite or whatever their next Live Service game is, they actually have a decent shot of overtaking steam. Basically, can they keep the current kids interested in EGS to the time they start earning?
I'd be surprised if EGS is even close to being profitable with the money they are spending to try and grow it.
If the next big thing comes and usurps Fortnite within the next 2 years I predict it will settle into GOG like popularity.
If they can keep the V-Bucks train rolling for 5+ years and keep the current kids interested in either Fortnite or whatever their next Live Service game is, they actually have a decent shot of overtaking steam. Basically, can they keep the current kids interested in EGS to the time they start earning?
What are you getting at here? People are sometime in the future, when the launcher might have the things it was missing, and Epic are no longer throwing money around to limit people's options, and say that they were wrong to react at the time when those things actually were issues?
I don't think Tencent will just give up on the EGS because Fortnite stops making bank.
Question 1: Will Epic stop buying exclusives and, if not, to what extent will they keep doing it?
They will have to stop as it's not sustainable, the big question is, will they stop because they reached an acceptable active userbase or because they didn't managed to reach it. I would personally vote for number 2.
Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?
I don't think Steam will engage in a race for the bottom against Epic, right now they have no reason to since they're attracting the bulk of the games anyways. And even if EGS somehow manage to have roughly the same userbase as Steam, they'll just lower their profits in vain.
Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?
Probably to an ok level, but as long as it's not on par and for me personally better than what is already available, the repsonse will be tepid at best.
Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?
I don't think so. We can clearly see tha tthey're running against a clock here with their strategy. They want to quiclky establish themselves and that's next to impossible without time.
They will have to stop as it's not sustainable, the big question is, will they stop because they reached an acceptable active userbase or because they didn't managed to reach it. I would personally vote for number 2.
Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?
I don't think Steam will engage in a race for the bottom against Epic, right now they have no reason to since they're attracting the bulk of the games anyways. And even if EGS somehow manage to have roughly the same userbase as Steam, they'll just lower their profits in vain.
Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?
Probably to an ok level, but as long as it's not on par and for me personally better than what is already available, the repsonse will be tepid at best.
Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?
I don't think so. We can clearly see tha tthey're running against a clock here with their strategy. They want to quiclky establish themselves and that's next to impossible without time.
I don't think they would completely give up, but I'm not sure if they would pump as much money as they currently are (and need to) if Fortnite fell off a cliff.
It would be a pretty big gamble, but then again I suppose if anyone could afford that risk it's Tencent
