That's a bold decision, store-wide sales are one of the most effective way to promote a webstore IMO.
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The Epic Games Store as described by Sergey Galyonkin (SteamSpy Creator, Currently At Epic) (Update: Sergey Clarifying Points on Twitter)
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That's a bold decision, store-wide sales are one of the most effective way to promote a webstore IMO.
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I wonder if they'll change their stance if their sales nosedive during seasonal sales events on other stores (not only Steam) as well as days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Doubtful. It seems epic wants to go about it their own way and if sales take a nose dive I doubt they will change much.
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I would agree on most points, but there will be different filters for "press" and "influencers." The idea being that reviewers as such will not get a referral link together with a copy. I suppose we're to think of traditional outlet like Gamespot when it comes to press. Though the line between a reviewer and influencer can be blurry for certain channels.
On YouTube, almost all the big names that do variety games are both.
I went to redeem Subnautica and Meatboy. It was weird as hell seeing everything full priced while every other PC store was having their winter sale. Not sure how long the no sales thing will last.
Same here. If I read curated lists then I know I might miss stuff that I like.
That's part of the reason I don't personally like steam though. Because the new releases list is exhaustive. I know that there's too much to look at, but I can keep on top of everything on Switch & PS4.
Nah I doubt it's a survey because I haven't recieved one yet and I pre-ordered fortnite.
Their TOS is how they found out. They scanned their users. And probably ran under the "Last Accessed" data that windows has.
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Switch is getting there though. I check weekly and it's hard to sift through what's worth playing and what isn't.
I also checked out of Steam's new releases page a long time ago. There's simply too much. Now, I mainly check recommendations around these parts and Steam curator pages.
The game is made by 1 dude and still in early access. I don't think a game like that is getting marketing push anywhere but I may be wrong about Chinese influencers there. Though I came to know about the game because of the youtube trailer he made which was posted here on resetera, not because of steam.
So....60%(ish) of Fortnite's players don't use steam at all (either due to being a different audience, or not being interested in the bevy of deals/features Steam offers), and yet, you expect them to start buying non-F2P games at the Epic store?
....Good luck with that.
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I was really surprised to read it was made by one person. WIth those production values -- like, how?
Era never really embraces popular MP games on the scale as the general gaming audience it's not a Fortnite thing.
There is no significant different between influencers and reviewers anymore (if there ever were such). For all intents and purposes influencers are every bit as much a reviewer as someone on GameSpot's payroll.
Please stop spreading "if your game is interesting people will magically start buying it" misinformation, especially if you aren't a developer yourself. Even if it's not based on ignorant, false assumptions about anecdotal cherry-picked examples.
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I think the influencer idea sounds good on paper but I expect it to backfire spectacularly. There are so many pitfalls with giving an influencer money for a game recommendation:
1) The influencer is going to get hit hard with being called a "sellout". Potential loss in fan base for the influencer as viewership typically will not going to want to see a recommendation based upon money exchanged with the developer itself.
2) If scenario one doesn't happen this could lead to a worse situation where power to cover games can be negotiated by said influencer. So an influencer could say "I'll cover your game if you give me x percentage cut".
3). If power goes to the influencers for coverage developers now need to negotiate with every popular influencer to try and get coverage. If a popular influencer knows one of his or her competitors are getting X cut for covering a game then he or she will want a similar cut. Who knows how big of a percentage a developer will have to give to to get coverage from all popular sources.
4) This will be another case then of hand picking winners and losers because only the most popular influencers will get paid for coverage.
I really don't think epic intended anything nefarious with the influencer program. I just don't see it working out.
So why are you blindly agreeing with them moneyhatting devs for exclusivity but this is where you say they step over the line? Both are equally bad.
Because... actually, you might want to sit down for this, it's going to blow your mind.
OK, ready? Here goes...
Because I disagree with you that they are equally bad.
Hopefully you can get over the shock of this revelation in a few days.
Also I think you quoted the wrong post, because the one you quoted was about a completely unrelated topic.
I don't think devs/publishers would be able to set the percentage per streamer; I hope it's just a flat percentage for all referral links for a particular game. Even then, it's still wide open to ways to unfairly game the system for profit and there's still a chance smaller games get overlooked for more "click-worthy" ones.
Hopefully Epic comes up with ways to promote games that don't rely on paying for referrals.
You, sir, are an absolute grand master of argumentation and dialectic. I take off my hat to your ironclad case and solid, irrefutable arguments. *bows*
Those 98% of Indies don get to BE on the epic store. Because the store is heavily curated and lets fewer games on it in a year than Microsoft and Sony and much much less games than nintendo and steam.
This is what I have been always saying. They are chasing an audience that, most likely (can't back this up with facts) usually only plays F2P games. Add to that the lack of sales and well, it will be hard to convince them to buy games. Epic themselves should know that, considering how Paragon was dying and Fortnite basically nailed the coffin. And if the Battle Royale mode wasn't F2P, the store wouldn't even exist.
I suppose Epic got the biggest game in the world by being fluid/swapping things on the fly, they must wanna apply that to the store and see what works?
Their cross-platform stuff becoming a thing in fall for everybody tells me they want like eight Fortnites, not just one
Their cross-platform stuff becoming a thing in fall for everybody tells me they want like eight Fortnites, not just one
Also: The percentage of real variety gamers in the streaming space (like Cohhcarnage) is tiny.
The viewership who follow variety gamers is tiny (if the counterargument is, that there will be more variety streamers if they will get paid)
Good luck getting the big streamers to play your game with a percentage cut. They will lose more money in subs and donations then they would ever make through some hundred sales on your game. They could even lose their complete Audience if they overdo it. Some streamers are in a "Streamer-trap" they lose audience for nearly every other game they play, if they got big on GameX and the audience is coming to their channel because of GameX.
I wouldn't really attest them great competence here. If that was correct, they wouldn't have closed all their other failed games.
There's a reason why King, Rovio and Zinga never managed to win twice the lottery. The same is true with Nintendo and Pokemon Go. Nintendo is chasing after the gacha money but Fate GO is already the king in this field.
F2P and phone games are almost completely random when it comes to catching the audience's interest. The only factor that could change that in favour of Epic would be how important is the curation of influencers if you consider that they take a direct cut from each game purchase. I can't see a store winning people just by being included in a game (everyone uses Discord now, but I'm not seeing Discord making huge numbers with its market, the same is true with the digital store of Amazon).
It's a bet that Epic is making with the store, but it's a bet they can make easily with the fortnite money, but I'm still not sure it will work that well honestly.
However, the nature of EGS's front page coupled with this style of discovery may also render certain types of (smaller) games invisible, especially once the store goes open to self-publishing. No guarantees that influencers will ever play your games, less so if it's not a game that drives viewership.
Once the Epic's 24-month promotion for influencers' cut runs out, smaller devs could start losing a significant chunk of their margin for sales through influencers. What if competition for their attention will drive margins lower and lower?
Just imagine a future where small indies have to hire popular influencers in hopes of gaining traction against the competition.
Once the Epic's 24-month promotion for influencers' cut runs out, smaller devs could start losing a significant chunk of their margin for sales through influencers. What if competition for their attention will drive margins lower and lower?
Just imagine a future where small indies have to hire popular influencers in hopes of gaining traction against the competition.
The Fortnite audience is vastly overestimated as far as the EGS goes. I imagine they're mostly kids playing on consoles, not on a gaming PC that can run a UE4 game.
You're right, I'm aware of that. But I assumed that releasing their games on Steam as well was one of the reasons why Ubisoft is doing so well on pc. Their games sold millions on top of uPlay. I'd understand if they went uPlay exclusive, but dropping Steam for a brand new store is a bold move. Epic must have paid them lots of money to do so. Surely Ubisoft doesn't expect to sell as much on EGS than they did on Steam?
But you don't have to check all new releases? Why not limit it to games that are recommended by curators? If you're using a curated store instead, you're missing even more games...
Not anymore if Epic continues their plans. Reviewers are being paid to review a game. Those influencers will be paid by Epic and the devs to promote a game. Huge difference!
This actually isn't true. Facebook does this with their Oculus store. And I don't mean paying for the full development of a game (which they do), but just paying developers of games that are already well on their way to have them be exclusive to their store, timed or otherwise.
It's UE4, the engine by default looks that good graphically. Plus there's the marketplace to buy assets from, and I guess the developer may have had some friends to do concept art in case he didn't do it himself.
Twitter Thread: Sergey clarifies points from podcast
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"Incorrect" Haha. I mean he either said this stuff or he didn't. daxy has no reason to lie about any of this.
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Official Staff Communication
Edited Thread Title and Added Threadmark
Just noting Sergey's currently responding on Twitter to the summary.
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I wonder if he's just going to backpedal or "clarify." There were other listeners who did not dispute what I wrote either. Where they suggested changes, I made them already.
You're right, I completely forgot about the Oculus Store. I don't own a VR set (yet)...
Well they are trying to aim for 4-5 years from now, by which point a lot of those kids will end up earning money and pay for games on a store they have been using for years. The retention is more important. Short term they'll get the other audience from other stores via exclusivity. That is my guess atleast based on what he said about aiming for the future.
Interested in kinds of console exclusives they can get. Sony & Nintendo finally on PC? :)
This is not unique to Epic though also happens on other platforms too. Even Steam does technically have such policy too, even if they only enforce it in extreme cases (Asset flips developers who sell keys for for cents. and much higher price on Steam.)
But 12% margin is pretty low. Payment fees are in range of 3-5%. Like if 30% cut results in 20% discounts, to keep that profit level, they can only discount by 2%, so $1 discount for $60 game max, compared to $12. Great for developers, sucks for customers.
Yea that seems like. Doesn't make it good response though.
Their privacy policy makes it pretty clear:
This is not unique to Epic though also happens on other platforms too. Even Steam does technically have such policy too, even if they only enforce it in extreme cases (Asset flips developers who sell keys for for cents. and much higher price on Steam.)
But 12% margin is pretty low. Payment fees are in range of 3-5%. Like if 30% cut results in 20% discounts, to keep that profit level, they can only discount by 2%, so $1 discount for $60 game max, compared to $12. Great for developers, sucks for customers.
Yea that seems like. Doesn't make it good response though.
Their privacy policy makes it pretty clear: