Big fat paycheck and a moneyhat, just taking a wild guess.
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The Division 2 Is Ditching Steam For The Epic Games Store On PC [See Threadmarks]
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
Big fat paycheck and a moneyhat, just taking a wild guess.
Because itch.io is more known as being an indie game store rather than the store that Fortnite is exclusively on? I guess they're getting a better cut and putting their game on a store that millions of people already use.
That doesn't mean for a second that Fortnite players are suddenly gonna all buy The Division 2 on the Epic store but I can see why it would be the decision over something like Itch.io.
This is likely never happening in the console space as long as physical retail exists.
So why not the Discord store then? Millions of users, better cut than Epic.
No one use the Epic Store as of yet. People use the Epic launcher. That is two different things. And even then, it's relying on the blurry "200M Fortnite users" without telling how many are PC users.
Steam won't go there. They are very open and have repeatedly suggested in VR for example to be an open space. The only thing I could see Valve doing is continuing to just release their own games on Steam only.
My post was in reference to the indies who ended up taking a game off the steam store to exclusively sell on epic
But if we are talking AAA pubs and devs , discord announced a even higher rate than itch.io, steam or epic.
(What I am saying is changing fee won't do anything)
The Epic Store split is better for the industry. That's the perspective of most who are supporting the store for that reason I'd imagine, that's also part of the reasoning behind Epic's decision. It's better and healthier for the industry for people who make games to get more for it.
Whether or not it's a lesser product or how much so depends entirely on your perspective. If it is worse off, how much are you okay giving up? For some, giving up those Steam offerings is an easy choice if it means the creators are paid more, or they might not consider them meaningful.
So for you to imply to others that "We as customers shouldn't worry about that fee" is what's truly silly. Instead speak on what you value.
If you truly care the developers get more money, then buy their games from itch.io.
i usually try to buy from humble widget on a devs page
i get a steam key, they get 95% (better than epic)
wow we all win
does the epic store allow developers to produce free keys that they get no cut from like steam
because if not theyre getting a worse deal
As I spoke on, it's about a balance of how much you care along with what you're willing to give up
From the developers perspective it's also a cost-benefit thing, might get a bigger cut of a way smaller audience if you're on a less-visible store, and a guaranteed paycheck is also nice. I have no issue with "moneyhatting" it's not a bad word.
I was offering a perspective on why saying we shouldn't worry about the fee developers get is weird. I usually buy games wherever they are cheapest, but I understand why someone would care how much the people who make the games get, and how they could value it over steam's offerings, AND understand that they might also have other reasons to get it from Epic's store instead of another where they get a bigger cut.
Again, it is weird to say if you truly care about how much they get then you'd get it from itch.io you can care about it to different degrees and also have other things factor in. It's like you're saying if you don't get it from there then you can't possibly care about their well-being.
False
Discord split is better for the industry yet we aren't seeing as much activity as epic store , I guess devs don't like money @_@
Excuse me if I don't believe for a second that what Epic is doing is out of pure benevolence and not leveraging their Fortnite coffers to torpedo a competitor and to catapult themselves into the lead.
Steam and Valve allow developers to distribute Steam keys on the developer websites with 100% dev revenue, that's a way way better deal than what Epic is doing.
Wait, there's a Discord store?
As a developer I would have more trust in a company like Epic that knows the gaming Industry for decades.
Even a 99% share is useless if nobody knows that the store exists.
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I said it factored into their decision.
I said better, not best. Already addressed it, but again, if you don't buy from the place where they get the best split it doesn't all of a sudden mean you don't care. It's about balance.
I guess devs don't like putting their game on a store that nobody uses?
Epic Store gives them a better split*, a store that already exclusively houses one of the most popular games in the world and potentially a moneyhat.
I could see Discord hitting two of those but you also have to factor in your decision the fact that nobody knows the store exists. I think this is relevant to a studio deciding how to release their game. I'm sure others will make other choices, there's clearly not a correct answer. I'm sure Steam is more attractive to most even with a worse cut of revenue just because it's the default PC gaming store for a lot of gamers. But, don't forget, the Epic launcher/store is probably the default gaming app for a hell of a lot of gamers too. Imagine how many people have that installed purely for Fortnite and have never made a Steam account.
*not the best, clearly
Which begs the question how many of those actually browse the Epic store daily to discover games and not just use it as a the Fortnite launcher and nothing more? How many of those millions of Fortnite users are actual customers for the shop? Guess we'll see.
Saying that it's healthier based on that revenue split ignores other factors that play in, like the userbases on other stores, utilizing multiple userbases by selling in several stores at once (relevant with Epic working for exclusivity instead of being another option), being able to generate and sell Steam keys and sell for a 100% revenue split in other stores, etc.
If Epic compensates for such things, then yes, it can be healthier (when the game sells enough that the increased revenue split actually works in their favors), but asking us customers to take a stance in this issue, when so many factors and numbers are in the dark for us, I'm not buying into it.
The Epic store is so extremely barebones that the only way a game there wouldn't be a lesser product compared to Steam/GOG Galaxy would be if I didn't utilize a single feature beyond install/play on those stores.
How much am I prepared to give up? As long as the games are being sold for essentially the same price, with nothing extra being added for me, and I'm being kept in the dark about the finances behind the game, then nothing. I am a customer on Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle and different crowd funding sites, and very often buys games for the asking price day 1, so I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.
But if a game is being sold completely DRM free, then I'm willing to give up both features on the platform and pay extra for that, as long as the platform selling it has the bare essentials, which the Epic Store doesn't have.
And it's also relevant to look at what devs that are behind these games that gets the extra revenue split. When it's either massive AAA publishers like Ubisoft, or indie devs with massive hits behind them, like Team Meat and Supergiant Games, then I'm not going to feel sorry for them and take their side in the battle for higher revenue splits. It would be a different thing for smaller devs really struggling, but not these that have been selected so far.
Yeah that's the great unknown at the moment. It's gonna be a gamble for those first few studios. But they're also presumably in the best position to get better deals out of it while it's a risk too.
Have we had any confirmation that Ubisoft have received payment to use the Epic storefront?
No and they'll never confirm that.
But we do know they did do it with coffee stain studios.
If they did it for an indie dev, they definitely did it for a partnership with Ubi.
The Division 2 was slated for Steam but removed because of Epic's sudden involvement. The same Epic that struck deals with indies to delay their games on Steam.
I mean, do you really think this stuff just happens with no monetary incentive?
They're not going to come out and tell you money exchanged hands.
People really think UbiSoft would give up millions of Steam sales without compensation? I don't know how you could arrive at that conclusion.
I seriously doubt ubisoft would have made this decision if epic didn't give a bunch of cash.
Exactly. It's reasonable to believe that when Epic has done the same thing multiple times.
I seriously doubt Ubisoft would release a AAA title on one platform over another on good faith.
If the cut was really a issue, they have their own store and generate their own keys which are on third party sites , in which it would have been better for them to turn into Bethesda or EA
There's literally no benefit for them to remove a game from one store in favor of another competitor unless they were paid to do so.
If the publisher had the intention to release it on as many platforms to attract as many people to engage with people who exclusively play or buy on one particular store, we would be seeing it on epic, steam and uplay.
They aren't gonna disclose a contractual agreement between two groups to the public. It's worse PR than what is happening lol
Closest you will get is that press release announcement about the game coming to epic instead of steam
You wouldn't wanna show the Internet your family's will (if you had one ) , would you?
You have to take something into consideration: Fortnite is a F2P game. You just need to download the launcher, then download the game and you are good to go. If Fortnite Battle Royale had an introductory price, the situation would be completely different.
Epic and many of these developers are taking a gamble to see if these players are willing to buy games in the store. Personally, I doubt it. They may be too invested in Fortnite already to buy another game and others just want to play a free games.
I also find quite interesting the lack of sales data, especially from a guy that used to show how many games were sold in Steam.
They get more people buying directly from Uplay. Alsothe news about the deal is a good promo.
I didn't actually think they had (or would), was just double checking because we're talking like it's gospel. Maybe a very well educated guess but was just checking I hadn't missed something.
They would have gotten the same publicity if they went EA's route and the full 100% rather than a 88% cut
No way in hell they threw a bone to epic for free lol
No business would make a change like that without any compensation - it's the only logical explanation , this isn't a conspiracy against the top player in the pc market or anything lol
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Of course it's a free game. But it's also a game that millions of people throw money at and their card details need to be in the store already for that to happen. In the 'top downloads of 2018' chart that PSN put out Fortnite had 8 entries in the top 20 DLCs of the year. They had positions 1-7. That's a lot of Fortnite DLC purchases. I can only assume it's similar on PC. It's a free game but let's not pretend that everyone on PC is downloading it and then never using the Epic store. Fortnite prints money. People are already using the Epic store with their Epic accounts in droves.
Last I remember on PC, microtransactions were inside the game, not in the store.
Time will tell if this move will work or not.
You mean a launcher that millions of people already use for a free to play game? Ubisofts games have been VERY successful on Steam. I really doubt that Ubisoft expects to earn more money on Epic's Store than on Steam.
It's very, very likely that Epic paid them to dump Steam in favor of Epic's Launcher. The fact that Epic and Ubisoft made a deal for several upcoming games as well, may indicate that Epic paid them a HUGE sum of money.
But despite that huge moneyhat AND the lower royalties, The Division 2 is still €59.99 on Epic's Store. It's f*cking sad...
That's some Machiavellian shit if Ubi did this to push people to uplay xD
Worst is that in some countries like Argentina or Mexico, it is even more expensive than in the US.
Worked on me, haha. Was planning to go Steam and now it'll be Uplay.
Because Epic doesn't allow key reselling, Epic's store is more expensive than Steam worldwide. :(
If you are playing fortnite and investing money on the microtransactions , I highly doubt those same people will invest on other games specifically single player ones
The only confirmation we ever got about payment was for Satisfactory.
If you follow the trail off of this game alone it's not hard to figure out what is happening.
Edit: Guess the Youtube time stamp doesn't work with the media function here on reset era so I removed the media link. Click here:
https://youtu.be/7V4UPiBOshY?t=90
My only other commentary is if Epic is going to start buying up all these exclusives, at the very least they can get some keys generated for sites like Green Man Gaming and Fanatical. Why even use the epic store for The Division 2 when you can buy a key cheaper for uplay on green man gaming.
I personally buy a decent amount of steam keys from sites like green man gaming and fanatical because I can pre order a game for 45 to 47 dollars. Resident Evil 2 remake is 45 dollars right now on green man gaming for a steam key. I'd definitely buy less games at 60 dollars.
If you follow the trail off of this game alone it's not hard to figure out what is happening.
Edit: Guess the Youtube time stamp doesn't work with the media function here on reset era so I removed the media link. Click here:
https://youtu.be/7V4UPiBOshY?t=90
My only other commentary is if Epic is going to start buying up all these exclusives, at the very least they can get some keys generated for sites like Green Man Gaming and Fanatical. Why even use the epic store for The Division 2 when you can buy a key cheaper for uplay on green man gaming.
I personally buy a decent amount of steam keys from sites like green man gaming and fanatical because I can pre order a game for 45 to 47 dollars. Resident Evil 2 remake is 45 dollars right now on green man gaming for a steam key. I'd definitely buy less games at 60 dollars.
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Sorry, it's getting really hard to tell things apart in these Epic moneyhat threads.
EA offers (or at least used to offer) 0% for 90 days years ago and we didn't see big movement there either
One details is, Epic doesn't give refunds for DLC or non-consumed microtransactions (that isn't bundled with game) unlike Steam.
I don't think you've read any of the thread if you believe this.
A) They're not losing millions of sales. The number of people that REFUSE to buy anything not on steam is miniscule and only getting smaller over time, not bigger.
B) They don't require 'compensation' in the sense you're trying to paint it, they get flatly more money on the Epic store. It's not a moneyhat, it's a business decision based on Epic offering them more than Steam.
Now that Epic is putting in 2 of the reasons everyone in this thread crying keeps bringing up for why their store sucks and they will ONLY buy steam products (even people that don't live in regions that need regional pricing), the reasons to remain only with steam are slowly shrinking to "Because I'm a PC gamer that wants to be a console warrior at heart" and that's gonna be largely it.
