Realistically, how do you see this whole Epic Games Store thing ending? (Read OP)

[Ionic]

I think people will eventually stop caring about exclusives. Facebook/Oculus kicked up a lot of ire around the launch of the Rift by also buying exclusives (not just funding whole games, but taking games that were nearly done and just buying them away from other stores). I'm sure many people who bemoan Epic's exclusive nabbing practice happily own Facebook's VR hardware. Facebook to this day buys exclusivity. However, whether people ever bother buying games that aren't exclusive to Epic on that store is another thing entirely.

 

[Ojli]

They'll keep EGS relatively curated and stay relevant, buying some timed exclusives but not all. Steam will be more of a free haven for all kinds of games (Hentai, asset flips and other that won't get accepted on EGS), while still having strong third party titles. If Steam changes their cut, it will probably be too little too late to have lost too much grip on the market and EGS will have been established. EGS is not even one year old, it'll be better in many ways in the years to come.

 

[IronicSonic]

Both platforms will be very similar in a couple of years. Epic will stop moneyhating as a main marketing strategy as well

 

[Imran]

A dev will get harassed into cancelling a game.

 

[funky]

People will just get use to it.

Epic will get less aggressive with the moneyhats but many developers will still launch there first due to the better rev split.

Valve wont drop their 33% cut and the steam community will still be vile as shit.

 

[Grimminski]

A dev will get harassed into cancelling a game.

Click to shrink...

It will escalate after that.

 

[Metroidvania]

That's where I sit and i still believe that if sales were amazing epic would be saying it every second they could.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, with how blatantly bold-faced/aggressive Tim is on twitter, I can't see him (or Sergey) not shouting things from the rooftops if things were going well in terms of sales.

Admittedly, there could be 4D-chess going on, but occam's razor says 'nah'.

I'm curious if it will give the stability to the devs long term because if they majority of the sales is the epic payment and they flounder on other storefronts than will that discourage or encourage devs to sign agreements? It's going to be interesting to see

Click to shrink...

Well, theoretically, if the Epic guaranteed sales means that the lights stay on for a year (or more) until the exclusivity window ends, the devs have a win-win when they hit Steam and get additional sales on top of that - at least, presuming the eventual steam release actually does well.

Which, going off of history, gamers tend to have short memories outside of rare exceptions - plus, in this instance, Epic is largely the bad guy/scapegoat.

What I'm honestly curious on is if any dev is bold enough to try and release for full price on Steam a year later - BL3 might, but man, if they do, there's gonna be flak.

 

[Dr. Ludwig]

People will just get use to it.

Epic will get less aggressive with the moneyhats but many developers will still launch there first due to the better rev split.

Valve wont drop their 33% cut and the steam community will still be vile as shit.

Click to shrink...

Umm yeah right.

Considering their shit curation policies and Sweeney's open check book, I'll go with a no.

 

[LewieP]

People will just get use to it.

Epic will get less aggressive with the moneyhats but many developers will still launch there first due to the better rev split.

Valve wont drop their 33% cut and the steam community will still be vile as shit.

Click to shrink...

Why would they pick EGS over itchio or even just direct sales if that were the only factor?

 

[OneBadMutha]

I'm still trying to understand the business model of the Epic launcher. What's the ultimate end game? Money hatting exclusives on consoles at least had an end game. If Epic was a superior launcher and they wanted people to experience it, I'd be able to understand. Business model doesn't seem sustainable. If there's no cross sales or way to build off of driving people to your ecosystem, what's the point?

All that said, none of the EGS rage will compare to Stadia moneyhatting so games are not available locally on any hardware.

 

[Kthulhu]

It'll end up like Origin and GoG. Just another store that no one uses compared to Steam.

 

[Static]

Valve wont drop their 33% cut and the steam

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They never had a 33% cut and they already reduced their cut back in January. But hey fuck 'em, right?

 

[Tovarisc]

People will just get use to it.

Epic will get less aggressive with the moneyhats but many developers will still launch there first due to the better rev split.

Valve wont drop their 33% cut and the steam community will still be vile as shit.

Click to shrink...

They will release there first if Epic pays them to release there. Otherwise it makes zero sense not to be on EGS, Steam, Origin, uPlay... all at once for best market exposure. Getting cash from multiple stores instead of one will generate more overall revenue after all.

What I'm honestly curious on is if any dev is bold enough to try and release for full price on Steam a year later - BL3 might, but man, if they do, there's gonna be flak.

Click to shrink...

I can see BL3's Steam release come bundled with games first DLC, timing could work it being 6 months after EGS release.

 

[Lothars]

Yeah, with how blatantly bold-faced/aggressive Tim is on twitter, I can't see him (or Sergey) not shouting things from the rooftops if things were going well in terms of sales.

Admittedly, there could be 4D-chess going on, but occam's razor says 'nah'.



Well, theoretically, if the Epic guaranteed sales means that the lights stay on for a year (or more) until the exclusivity window ends, the devs have a win-win when they hit Steam and get additional sales on top of that - at least, presuming the eventual steam release actually does well.

Which, going off of history, gamers tend to have short memories outside of rare exceptions - plus, in this instance, Epic is largely the bad guy/scapegoat.

What I'm honestly curious on is if any dev is bold enough to try and release for full price on Steam a year later - BL3 might, but man, if they do, there's gonna be flak.

Click to shrink...

I think all the games will attempt to come out at full price with game of the year type version. I definitely see borderlands doing it though.

I can BL3's Steam release come bundled with games first DLC, timing could work it being 6 months after EGS release.

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That's a good point.

 

[Static]

What I'm honestly curious on is if any dev is bold enough to try and release for full price on Steam a year later - BL3 might, but man, if they do, there's gonna be flak.

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I absolutely expect every single game coming to Steam after the exclusivity window to launch at full price.

 

[Deleted member 56752]

This is entir. ely dependent on context. Buying up a game while its being crowdfunded, for example, hurts the reputation of crowdfunding.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I think what I originally said is getting twisted. When I say having multiple platform holders with multiple platforms available for monetization, I think that overall points to a more positive and stable landscape for developers. I'm not just talking about EGS buying exclusives on PC. I'm talking about an indie game like Scavengers. Midwinter Entertainment, can't be more than like 10-15 guys in Seattle working on a PvEvP game that could potentially be a breakout hit if streamers adopt it. They are probably targeting Xbox, PS4, and PC. They just likely are, the way gaming works. Xbox has an early Access, along with Steam, so they could potentially get money for working through/on those platforms before even release. Then, before launch, they could be working with Stadia and allow there to be a streaming platform for it (before xCloud). Then 6 months down the road, for availability on xCloud, another deal could be struck. As we get to a year of release, Epic pays up for its share of the game. Why else would they release on EGS unless they pay for it to be on there. Then 1.5 years down the line we get a version on Xbox Game Pass. 2 years down the road, it's available on the PSNow. Both game pass and PSNow are additional paychecks.

I'm just saying, there are a lot of options now and an increasingly smaller pool of devs and games. It's not just, huh, looks cool but it isn't call of duty and so no one buys it and then that's it. Hooks can be set through game pass and ps now, well after release even.

 

[Axisofweevils]

Question 1: Will Epic stop buying exclusives and, if not, to what extent will they keep doing it?

I think Borderlands 3 will ultimately the big test of that. That's the biggest game they have and if that doesn't move the needle, I expect investors will be tired of them throwing money.

Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?

Doubtful. Publishers release on EGS primarily due to the moneyhat. 88% of nothing is worse than 70% of something. If most games on EGS never break past that initial moneyhat, what's the point?

Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?

I don't think they'll get any praise for adding basic features that should have been there from the beginning.

Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?

I think it will be a place to play Rocket League and Fortnite, but little else.

 

[funky]

They never had a 33% cut and they already reduced their cut back in January. But hey fuck 'em, right?

Click to shrink...

*for developers that already sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Valve out there giving tax cuts for the rich when its the little developers that actually need help.

Steam starts taking smaller sales cut from biggest games

In the interests of keeping big games on Steam, Valve have started taking a smaller cut of sales - but only from mega-s…

www.rockpapershotgun.com

 

[Huxley]

Do we even have any sales data for EGS, or anecdotal evidence from devs?

I feel like visibility is a bigger factor than principles. I have an Origin account but i stopped buying EA games years ago because i don't check the Origin store ever, where as Steam is always on in the background.

Personally, i'm okay with waiting 6-12 months for exclusivity deals to expire but a younger, less patient version of me would have used whatever store i needed to use to play day one.

 

[Lothars]

Do we even have any sales data for EGS, or anecdotal evidence from devs?

I feel like visibility is a bigger factor than principles. I have an Origin account but i stopped buying EA games years ago because i don't check the Origin store ever, where as Steam is always on in the background.

Personally, i'm okay with waiting 6-12 months for exclusivity deals to expire but a younger, less patient version of me would have used whatever store i needed to use to play day one.

Click to shrink...

The only data we have is from the few devs that have released their sales like others have said that maybe partially due to NDAs but i also feel that if sales were so good they would be talking about it constantly.

 

[LazyLain]

Depends on how long the Fortnite gravy train keeps chugging. If it were to derail in the immediate future, I think EGS would end up just being another uPlay/Origin-tier launcher.

If the gravy train keeps on chugging for a good long while, I think they'll eventually reach a point where it'll become prominent enough that people will have no choice but to take it seriously.... begrudging acceptance. And if Epic manages to start generating some goodwill and puts serious effort into improving EGS, in time it might be liked or even preferred.

But that's a lot of ifs... so I really can't say. But I've personally already accepted it, and I tend to be behind the curve.

 

[PrimeBeef]

I see one of two things happening. Either EGS will stop with the exclusives and possibly change the 88/12 split, which they have claimed to be impossible to keep doing long term, or the drop out. Steam will not be affected by them long term.

 

[Fiery Phoenix]

My prediction is that Steam will end up being the place for indies and no-name games, with EGS having the lion's share of higher-budget games.

 

[Pokemaniac]

All this exclusive buying can't continue forever, even with the Fortnite gravy-train (which also probably won't last forever, but it's not showing signs of slowing down yet). Once they stop paying for exclusives, I think the best case scenario is that they just become another Origin and fade into semi-obscurity. The worst case scenario, is that the store proves so unprofitable that they just end up taking it out back and shooting it once the exclusives have dried up and it's become clear that no one really wants to use the store without Epic subsidizing it.

There's an outside chance they may eventually beat the odds and become a legitimate Steam competitor, but that would require them to make some pretty deep philosophical changes, including, but not limited to, actually attempting to compete with Steam rather than just trying (unsuccessfully) to choke them out.

 

[morningbus]

A dev will get harassed into cancelling a game.

Click to shrink...

I mean, this happened in the pre-EGS world to Fez 2.

*for developers that already sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Valve out there giving tax cuts for the rich when its the little developers that actually need help.

Steam starts taking smaller sales cut from biggest games

In the interests of keeping big games on Steam, Valve have started taking a smaller cut of sales - but only from mega-s…

www.rockpapershotgun.com

Click to shrink...

Hey, it beats Tim Sweeney's theory of trickle down economics finally, for the first time ever, actually working.

 

[Issen]

EGS will keep buying exclusives for as long as it needs to in order to gain a competitive advantage, not just against Steam now but also eventually against consoles. Especially due to the latter I expect the practice to continue, though perhaps we'll see full EGS exclusivity (meaning also excluding console releases) in the future.

I don't expect Valve to become more flexible in its margins unless forced to, and honestly I don't think EGS is going to be a threat to Valve to quite this extent for some time. However I am half expecting it to happen eventually. Wouldn't bet on it but it's a decent possibility.

Yes, the EGS will absolutely improve its service. It's gonna take a while, these things take time. And no, that's no excuse since the customer shouldn't care about this and instead go to whoever has the better product, I'm just explaining why it's gonna take a while. But it's going to happen and, eventually, much of the bad blood EGS has directed towards itself is going to go away. How much, however, is going to depend on how they conduct their business once their service is up to par. I don't expect the negativity to go away entirely as I expect the practice of buying exclusives to continue, and I'm sure there'll be a PR snafu or another as a side-dish, but eventually the service will be good enough that the negativity will not significantly impact Epic's business with the mainstream consumer.

As for Epic and the EGS being around long-term: Tencent is going to make sure it does. There is a possibility that it will be under Tencent's own branding and not under the "Epic" brand but the service itself is definitely going to continue in one form or another.

 

[Garlic]

Yeah, you're right, GOG Galaxy, Origin, Uplay, Bethesda.net, Battle.net, and the Windows Store don't exist.

Click to shrink...

Why you doing itch.io like that

 

[Static]

*for developers that already sell hundreds of thousands of copies.

Valve out there giving tax cuts for the rich when its the little developers that actually need help.

Steam starts taking smaller sales cut from biggest games

In the interests of keeping big games on Steam, Valve have started taking a smaller cut of sales - but only from mega-s…

www.rockpapershotgun.com

Click to shrink...

Everybody's trying to court the successful. EGS ain't out there offering sacks of cash to the games they don't think financially merit it. Hell, if you don't have a big enough draw EGS does not currently want you on their store at all. It'll be interesting to see how wide EGS throws its doors when they finally manage to make publishing to their store a less onerous process. Somehow I bet they'll remain relatively stingy with their access.

 

[Tovarisc]

EGS will keep buying exclusives for as long as it needs to in order to gain a competitive advantage, not just against Steam now but also eventually against consoles. Especially due to the latter I expect the practice to continue, though perhaps we'll see full EGS exclusivity (meaning also excluding console releases) in the future.

Click to shrink...

I very much doubt Sweeney and Tencent have stomach for costs it would take to secure AAA 3rd party game exclusively to EGS. Borderlands 3 already is title with just 6 month exclusivity window and that was just to remove option of other PC storefronts.

 

[Alien Bob]

I just still have trouble figuring out what their business plan is. I get the point of buying up exclusives, but what reason do I have to buy non-exclusives from them? They don't have GOG's no DRM angle. They don't have itch.io's indie focus. They'll never catch up to Steam's 15 year head start on features, nor do they seem to have any interest in doing so. I'm having difficulty assessing their long term success because their current strategy is so short term focused.

 

[Static]

88/12 split, which they have claimed to be impossible to keep doing long term, or the drop out.

Click to shrink...

Wait, did Epic actually say that the 88/12 split is unsustainable? I thought that they'd said the opposite, that in the future they may even lower their cut when (if) business costs decrease.

 

[Watercolour]

I think the EGS will lose its momentum and eventually fade into obscurity.

 

[Tesser]

Do we even have any sales data for EGS, or anecdotal evidence from devs?

Click to shrink...

The only thing that springs to mind is THQ Nordic's last earnings release; THQ Nordic owns Deep Silver which published Metro Exodus. IIRC, they sort of danced around the idea of giving any hard sales figures when pushed on the matter of Exodus' performance on EGS, but didn't give an actual answer. I think they just gave a wishy-washy "sales have been sufficient" answer or along those lines. Keep in mind, even if they were low, that doesn't mean it's primarily because it was an exclusive to EGS.

 

[Man God]

EGS is attempting to do what Microsoft did with the XBOX, which is to buy their way into the market. If they get established somewhere ahead of GoG for number two they'll start to pull back on their wild spending. If they don't get there they'll just drop it and focus on something else.

 

[PrimeBeef]

Wait, did Epic actually say that the 88/12 split is unsustainable? I thought that they'd said the opposite, that in the future they may even lower their cut when (if) business costs decrease.

Click to shrink...

Unless that was recent. I remember reading that it was unsustainable.

 

[Tovarisc]

Wait, did Epic actually say that the 88/12 split is unsustainable? I thought that they'd said the opposite, that in the future they may even lower their cut when (if) business costs decrease.

Click to shrink...

I think this is closest to such admission.

https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1091025939109199879

They are transferring payment method fees to consumer as extra fees in many e.g. EU countries because they can't cover them from their 12% cut.

Do we even have any sales data for EGS, or anecdotal evidence from devs?

Click to shrink...

Satisfactory devs have said that they have sold 500+ k copies on EGS.

https://dailytech.page/2019/06/07/world-sales-of-satisfactory-exceeded-500-thousand-copies/

 

[Metroidvania]

Wait, did Epic actually say that the 88/12 split is unsustainable? I thought that they'd said the opposite, that in the future they may even lower their cut when (if) business costs decrease.

Click to shrink...

I don't recall if it's been explicitly stated, but Epic is already throwing processing fees at consumers in certain countries - and that's WITH the Fortnite money supplanting their losses.

Do we even have any sales data for EGS, or anecdotal evidence from devs?

Click to shrink...

The only 'hard' data we have IIRC is from WWZ, and that was not a 'snatched up' (per se) exclusive in the way that the kickstarted stuff is.

Satisfactory devs have said that they have sold 500+ k copies on EGS.

Click to shrink...

Ah, forgot about this - but I can't recall, did they/Sweeney say that was explicitly 'sales' and not 'guaranteed' pre-salees?

I think all the games will attempt to come out at full price with game of the year type version. I definitely see borderlands doing it though.

Click to shrink...

I absolutely expect every single game coming to Steam after the exclusivity window to launch at full price.

Click to shrink...

With DLC I can maybe see it, but the pc gaming crowd will definitely wait them out if they try full price without any extras, lol.

 

[Deleted member 278]

Epic is building long term relationships with these publishers and developers. Ubisoft games aren't going to come back to Steam even without moneyhats, nor will a lot of the smaller publishers that Epic has made deals with. The games are selling well on the platform, it's proven its a viable storefront already.

So keep your game exclusive to EGS and rake in that 88% cut, and then throw it on Steam six months to a year later for long term revenue from Steam sales etc.

Steam will continue to be fine even without these high profile games, Valve makes too much money to actually ever feel the need to change course in any way, plus they don't have public investors to pressure them.

 

[hersheyfan]

Question 1: Will Epic stop buying exclusives and, if not, to what extent will they keep doing it?
No, they wont, at the very least for another year and likely even beyond that. Considering the glacial speed of their development progress on features and infrastructure upgrades, it's clear that theyre prioritizing exclusives acquisition as their spend focus. Sweeney's not wrong - forcing people to engage with the store by using exclusives is the only way anybody stands even a small chance of putting a dent in Steam's market share. If they stop buying exclusives, thats a sure sign that they've consigned themselves to becoming another boutique third party storefront like Origin or Uplay instead of jockeying for true leadership.

Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?
Steam will not reduce its basic cut. It may offer additional financial incentives for various milestones (like they're already doing now for big selling titles), but the base rate will remain 30%. It will stay that way unless the industry in general lowers its standard cut (console first parties, Apple, Google), which is not going to happen any time soon.

Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?
Epic will definitely improve the consumer facing side of their service eventually. I just dont think theyre going to pull it off in time to meet the conditions for real success (see question 4, below).

Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?
(Clearly, this refers to EGS. Epic itself will always be around in some form due to Unreal Engine's ubiquity.)
I don't doubt that EGS will be around for the long term, unless Fortnite doesn't prove to be as evergreen as we all expect.
Epic's path to victory is to build up enough consumer mass that third party publishers will release games on their storefront exclusively (even temporarily) without need for an additional moneyhat, because the lower cut and the Unreal Engine subsidy already make it worth the risk. If all they get is a same day release parity with Steam, nobody's going to buy from EGS given the choice because everyone's entrenched. As of right now, they cant even get that release parity without a moneyhat - 2K, THQ Nordic and Ubi are the only big third party pubs on EGS, with all publicly having disclosed taking financial incentives. Where's Bethesda? Where's Activision? Where is any Japanese publisher? Wheres my EGS release of Rage 2, or Sekiro, or Spyro Trilogy, or Devil May Cry 5, or any freaking Final Fantasy? The fact that these pubs arent signing off on even a parity release speaks volumes.
If they can't achieve that critical mass of paying users after a couple of years, theyre going to be shifting into Origin mode to cut their losses.

 

[Tovarisc]

Ah, forgot about this - but I can't recall, did they/Sweeney say that was explicitly 'sales' and not 'guaranteed' pre-salees?

Click to shrink...

Dev says on video "We have sold..." so actual sales.

As far we know Satisfactoy is biggest hit on EGS.

 

[Deleted member 25117]

The entire purpose of the EGS is to kill Steam and take it's place. If they're unable to match it's features and gain a userbase before their exclusive deals and free game hand outs dry out once Fortnite dies, as well as patching up their current image, I don't think they'll get anywhere near achieving their goal.

1. They most likely will keep buying exclusives for as long as they can afford to. Until then though, it'll severely damage the viability of crowdfunding projects as well as encourage piracy as we've already seen a resurgence in the latter.
2. Steam already does charge less than 30%, but if you mean further decrease, then it's possible they will, however a 12% cut has already proven itself to be unsustainable so I strongly doubt they'll ever match the EGS cut.
3. Epic will never be able to match Steam's feature set thanks to it's low cut, both in consumer friendly features (refunds, family sharing, payment options, etc) as well as developer friendly features (free key generation, community forums, Steamworks, etc) but they most likely will match the feature sets of other digital stores like Uplay and Origin eventually. I don't expect anyone to cheer about that, though.
4. I think they'll stick around, but their relevancy will depend on if they're able to retain customers for more than their timed exclusive games. So I think if they're not able to keep Fortnite players spending money on the platform after the game loses steam, it'll be very difficult for them to become the dominant digital storefront.

All of this depends strongly on both Fortnite staying relevant and if not, perhaps Tencent's involvement (which is unlikely based on what Sweeney is saying), and it's still too early to tell for sure what Epic will try next, since their tactics don't seem very effective so far.

 

[Deleted member 20831]

Satisfactory devs have said that they have sold 500+ k copies on EGS.

https://dailytech.page/2019/06/07/world-sales-of-satisfactory-exceeded-500-thousand-copies/

Click to shrink...

That's around $1-$2 Million Epic Game Store's 12% cut and Steam would have taken $2.7-$4.7 Million for the same numbers.
For a comparison, Satisfactory would have need to sold ~25-26% (130K+) additional copies on Steam to make the same amount of money for the publisher/developer.

(or my math is wrong)

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

People will just get use to it.

Epic will get less aggressive with the moneyhats but many developers will still launch there first due to the better rev split.

Valve wont drop their 33% cut and the steam community will still be vile as shit.

Click to shrink...

Last time I checked they were taking 30%

 

[Tygre]

Best case for Epic:

EGS goes the Origin / Uplay / GoG route and eventually becomes an accepted "also-ran". Nobody likes that it exists, but everyone accepts that it does. Exclusives keep being bought, people keep ignoring them until they come out on Steam / begrudgingly using EGS if they absolutely have to.

Remember when Origin first launched, and all EA games were pulled off Steam? People were PISSED (not as pissed as with EGS, but there was some rage, and it was EA who lots of people have a hateboner for anyway). Well is anyone really still pissed about Origin? Maybe, but it's not like there are 80 page threads about it every week. It's conceivable the same thing happens with EGS.

Life goes on, eventually nobody really notices it anymore, it's just like some games effectively have a weird 1 year wait on PC vs console like they used to in the 00's.


Worst case for Epic:

The Fortnite cash dries up. EGS is wholly unsustainable without an outside revenue source. EGS closes in ignominy.

If this breaks really bad, some devs end up going under due to being screwed in the shuffle. Other games end up weirdly broken like a bunch of old GFWL exclusives did until they were patched to take out all the horrible GFWL API stuff.


EGS is intended as a Steam killer. In neither case do they come close to killing Steam, so it's possible Epic just pulls the plug after a few years of failure anyway.

EGS will not cause Steam to lower it's cut, or meaningfully change in any way, other than making moves to punish and prevent developers/publishers from using their store to generate free advertising before cutting and running. Expect them to insist on something like pre-orders going live when a store page does, those pre-orders being honoured at release, and day-and-date patches and DLC, minimum.

 

[toad02]

EGS having a smaller cut doesn't mean they can do better sales than Steam?
This could be a possible next step for them once they have a larger catalog.
For sure the price is my number 1 reason to buy anything anywhere.

 

[scitek]

Well, the more games are added to the store, the more cluttered it will become, so discoverability will soon become a major issue. And the extra percentage devs and pubs get over Steam and other stores will be moot if games are just selling a fraction of the copies they would elsewhere, so if Epic stops their moneyhatting, I think enthusiasm from third parties will decline.

On top of that, if they stop giving away free games, people like me will no longer have any reason to bother using it, so in the end, I think it will be dead in the water, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Epic all but abandon it like they have other things. And god knows what will happen to your games when they do, which is why I won't be building a library there.

 

[abellwillring]

With multiple storefronts. It won't "end" but just continue on.

 

[Deleted member 401]

Why you doing itch.io like that

Click to shrink...

I wasn't aware that itch.io had a launcher. I thought it was just a website that you downloaded games from.

 

[LewieP]

I wasn't aware that itch.io had a launcher. I thought it was just a website that you downloaded games from.

Click to shrink...

It does

Download App

itch, the best way to download and play indie games. Download free games and manage your library from your desktop. Now available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

itch.io

Entirely optional, though.

 

[sph3re]

Question 1: Will Epic stop buying exclusives and, if not, to what extent will they keep doing it?

I imagine they'll keep trying to buy exclusives to gain an advantage over Steam until they maintain a decent market share.


Question 2: Will Steam decide to lower its percentage and, if so, what will happen afterwards?

Valve seems pretty reactive instead of proactive. I think they'll eventually change the cut, but not until Epic Games has snagged a ton of exclusives.


Question 3: Will Epic improve its service and, if so, what will the reaction be?

Of course they'll improve it, but it's really hard to shake a bad reputation like that. Case in point: Xbox One. They shit the bed with their launch and paid for it, hard.


Question 4: Will Epic even be around in the long-term?

I don't see why not.