Outer Worlds Epic store exclusive

Along with Detroit, Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls - Eurogamer:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2…l-coming-to-pc

It's not exclusive to Epic store, it will also release on the Windows store. (I know not exactly better).

Originally Posted by azarhal
It's not exclusive to Epic store, it will also release on the Windows store. (I know not exactly better).

Probably because Microsoft now owns Obsidian. A gesture of good faith.

Steam better step up it's game to stop more Epic Exclusives happening.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Steam better step up it's game to stop more Epic Exclusives happening.

It was never about the revenue split. This is Tencent trying to kill the competition by making sure no new PC games get released on anything but Epic Store for as long as it takes by buying publishers straight up via long term contracts (those things aren't per game as learned today when Ubisoft announced they extended their contracts with Epic). It will kill GOG before Steam too.

Steam already changed their revenue split scaling last year and the Epic stores has lower prices (at least in the US). That means the amount of revenue in $ per sale at Epic isn't necessarily better than on Steam. Also, Steam allow publisher to generate keys for free that they can sell wherever they want.

example: Metro Exodus:
Epic price: 49.99usd (publisher cut 88%: 43.9912)
Steam price: 59.99usd (starting publisher cut 70%: 41.993, at $10m or 166 694 copies in this case, it is 75%: 44.9925, after $50m in sales, which is around 833 473 copies sold at that price, it's 47.992/copy for the publisher)

I'm not a big Epic supporter but from my vantage point it's only going to get worse. As they now have 14 more exclusives with more to be announced in the next few months.

Even Ubisoft today admitted more of their games will be exclusives. Someone also mentioned you might see all Unreal engine games migrate just for the added revenue.

As for Steam correct they lowered the take with an added bonus so it can be 80/20 if your game sells well, but apparently that's not enough as they don't offer cash bribes.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
as they don't offer cash bribes.

Contract singing bonuses. If it is real bribes, this will end up as the biggest commercial corruption court case of the gaming industry in a few months.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Contract singing bonuses. If it is real bribes, this will end up as the biggest commercial corruption court case of the gaming industry in a few months.

I know but I call semantics. It's almost the same thing just worded differently.

I already completely ignore Ubijunk, Origin, and I'm sure there are others that I don't subscribe to. It's easy to add Epic to that list, I'm not going to junk up my lovely computer with every damn platform in existence, to that end I'll just wait until games make their ways to the two platforms that I do use. When you attempt to force me to add something new to my computer just to enjoy a game, I'll laugh in your face and keep all my monies.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Also, Steam allow publisher to generate keys for free that they can sell wherever they want.

Epic allows (or will allow?) this too, but only for games not involved in one of their special exclusive deals. Source: Tim Sweeney (CEO of Epic) on Twitter not long ago.

The hyperbole train is in full motion today.

So… they're offering attractive contracts to studios, while also offering lower prices? The absolute monsters!

Originally Posted by Ripper
So… they're offering attractive contracts to studios, while also offering lower prices? The absolute monsters!

If Tencent could get away with it, they would be selling the games at a lost just to get users.

Originally Posted by azarhal
If Tencent could get away with it, they would be selling the games at a lost just to get users.

Quite possibly - hence competition in the market, and lower prices.

Originally Posted by azarhal
If Tencent could get away with it, they would be selling the games at a lost just to get users.

Which would be good for us. Who's gonna complain about a store selling games at a loss? The argument to the contrary is that it might put competitors out of business, but are you really worried about Steam going out of business? They would just adopt the same practices anyway, if that's what it takes to survive. And/or lower their % cut, which would be good for game developers - you know, those people actually making the games that we like. The consumers and developers are winning here, while suits at Valve will get less money - oh no. And you may have to, god forbid, install multiple game stores on your computer, but if that's something that keeps you up at night, that sounds like the ultimate "first world problem".

Well not sure; I mean if epic is buying exclusivity the only steam can do is buy 'other' games exclusivity but it becames a fight or bidding war to see who can make the next game exclusive to their site. The trend on the whole is very bad (imho) to the industry and will just squeeze out smaller stores that don't have the $$$$ to buy exclusivity. Why can't stores just compete on merit ?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Probably because Microsoft now owns Obsidian. A gesture of good faith.

Steam better step up it's game to stop more Epic Exclusives happening.

I don't mind if companies pick epic due to better split but that's not what happening. Epic is BUYING market shares because they can't compete on the quality of their offering.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I'm not a big Epic supporter but from my vantage point it's only going to get worse. As they now have 14 more exclusives with more to be announced in the next few months.

Even Ubisoft today admitted more of their games will be exclusives. Someone also mentioned you might see all Unreal engine games migrate just for the added revenue.

As for Steam correct they lowered the take with an added bonus so it can be 80/20 if your game sells well, but apparently that's not enough as they don't offer cash bribes.

Originally Posted by you
I don't mind if companies pick epic due to better split but that's not what happening. Epic is BUYING market shares because they can't compete on the quality of their offering.

That's not what's happening. What's happening is Epic is buying exclusives to promote their store, drive traffic to it, and gain more visibility - in the hopes of being competitive later on. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

Also, the gamers are benefitting from this because more money is ending up in the developers' pockets from these Epic deals, and less in the pockets of Valve suits.

Actually you are making a number of assumptions: First we have no clue if developers are making more money. We know publishers are getting a better % of the split AND some money up front but that is hardly publishers making more money much less the devleopers. Gamers would only benefit if the price was lower AND the new required service (required for the game of their choice) didn't spoil the experience or cause long term issues (spyware and similar). Do you have any data that suggest gamers are actually benefit from this arrangement ?
-
As of today we don't know that gamers are getting any benefit. Publishers are getting the benefit of some minimum but that doesn't help developers….

Originally Posted by Stingray
That's not what's happening. What's happening is Epic is buying exclusives to promote their store, drive traffic to it, and gain more visibility - in the hopes of being competitive later on. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader

Also, the gamers are benefitting from this because more money is ending up in the developers' pockets from these Epic deals, and less in the pockets of Valve suits.

Originally Posted by you
Actually you are making a number of assumptions: First we have no clue if developers are making more money. We know publishers are getting a better % of the split AND some money up front but that is hardly publishers making more money much less the devleopers. Gamers would only benefit if the price was lower AND the new required service (required for the game of their choice) didn't spoil the experience or cause long term issues (spyware and similar). Do you have any data that suggest gamers are actually benefit from this arrangement ?

Let's take the two most prominent examples:

Phoenix Point: Obviously they believe they are going to make more money from the Epic arrangement, otherwise they wouldn't have taken it. This game is self-published so there is no publisher taking the additional money. And yes, I think it's safe to assume that gamers benefit when developers get more money instead of Valve suits. They've also insisted repeatedly that the game and/or their company will be in better shape because of this deal, and there's no reason to believe they're lying.

Metro Exodus: The game sold for $50 instead of $60 because of the Epic exclusive. It's also safe to assume that the developer and/or publisher is getting more money out of the deal, otherwise they wouldn't have taken it. Perhaps you would argue that the publisher takes all the extra money and the developer gets none of it. But that's fine, either way gamers benefit because they just paid $10 less for the same game.

Gamers benefit in both cases.

Oh one less game to worry about. Looked pretty dull anyway