Total War Saga: TROY is now a 12 month Epic Games Store exclusive

Sega/Creative Assembly is a studio that help make steam what it is now by making mandatory for people wanting to play Total War to install and launch steam. Their community is part of the steam community because people were not allowed to play their games outside of steam. That is what Epic is buying with their very generous offer (Epic is buying copies of Total War Troy to everyone who claim it on August 13, that far more money that this game would have made in its whole life. Total War Saga are considered far inferior as the main games and the period did not interest much people).

Don't think people will leave steam for that game through. I will still try to wineclaim the game because I prefer money in CA's coffer than Tecent's.

Quoting: MohandevirPersonally, I was able to steer my son away from Fortnite. He is now an Overwatch convert. At least, he's not giving any more money to Epic that is used to fight Linux gaming...

May I ask: how is Blizzard any better?

Meh, Epic can suck it. Chinese bribe money.

Quoting: EhvisIt's safe to say that giving a game away on day one is going to cost Epic. There are two options, either Epic pays per freely given game, or they paid a fixed price. If the first is true, then having as many people get it as possible would increase the cost for Epic. For the second it might make the deal for CA a bit less interesting than they thought it was. Either way could lower the chances of it happening again.

The thing that would stop it happening again is if no one (relatively) plays it for a year, and particularly at launch when they're trying to build hype. An Epic flop.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe real question is, is this kind of thing working for Epic, or are they just throwing money into a pit?
I'm not convinced it's working. Steam use keeps growing and the last figures I saw about Epic store sales (other than Fortnite) looked big until I compared them with the size of the market, at which point they looked tiny.
Anyone got any more recent stats?

No stats, but they are bleeding money. When they pay $10 out of their own (hehe) pocket during the Epic Mega Sale stuff, they lose money on every game sold.

Quoting: Kohrias

Quoting: MohandevirPersonally, I was able to steer my son away from Fortnite. He is now an Overwatch convert. At least, he's not giving any more money to Epic that is used to fight Linux gaming...

May I ask: how is Blizzard any better?

Read all my post and you will have your answer. If you are not satisfied by my answers, it's on you. I won't start a debate on the subject.

Edit: It's more than probable that we (linux gamers) just lost an high quality Feral port because of Epic's exclusivity garbage stuff. I really need to say more?


Last edited by Mohandevir on 2 June 2020 at 7:10 pm UTC

Honestly Epic, is just doing nothing for the community of gaming, I bet other platform offers the same % against Steam. But the only they are doing is cashing the money for those publisher.

For one point I bet people will wait a year that is exclusive game pass and buy the game cheaper at Steam with any offer. I'm not a fan of these saga, but I bought one like 6 months ago, I like it (very unique and challenge ) and also like to support Feral.

I will like to know how much the money they made releasing a game on epic and then in the others store. Also Epic must doing games if they want more people use their client.

Right now is already pass the game of Metro I m still waiting for the release on Linux if someday is release I won't mind to wait but when is release I will buy it on steam.

As example we have Valve they release Alyx and also they said now are focusing on making more games. They have their games that are the starts like Cs GO or Dota 2, but they understand that won't last. The same happen with the Epic store give a couple of years and won't generate the same amount of user as today, thanks to Fortnite.

The only great client at less won't care of release their gaming in other platform is GoG I wish they had a native client for Linux.

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe real question is, is this kind of thing working for Epic, or are they just throwing money into a pit?
I'm not convinced it's working. Steam use keeps growing and the last figures I saw about Epic store sales (other than Fortnite) looked big until I compared them with the size of the market, at which point they looked tiny.
Anyone got any more recent stats?

No stats, but they are bleeding money. When they pay $10 out of their own (hehe) pocket during the Epic Mega Sale stuff, they lose money on every game sold.

That's a given. They're clearly operating on the principle, "It takes money to make money". So they're paying big dough to attempt to very literally buy market share. If all the paid-for exclusives can attract customers to the store to buy both those and other games, and that attracts more games to the store that they don't have to pay through the nose to get the exclusive, and the whole thing snowballs and they eat Steam's lunch, then they win (and eventually jack up the prices and make back all the dough and masses more). If they just sit there with a threadbare store and a few exclusives, with people nipping in to grab their loss leaders and then running back to Steam where they have community and achievements and modding and stuff, then they lose.

So the question is which of those things is going on. Are they building market share? Or are they just buying a bunch of one-offs that don't add up to momentum?


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 2 June 2020 at 7:22 pm UTC

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: TheSHEEEPEpic just has the better deals for developers.

My hope is that Valve will wake up from its slumber and starts giving developers better deals as well. A cut lower than the absurd 30% would be a very good start.

Concerning the game at hand, it does suck for Feral I imagine, but I was never interested in the "Saga" series to begin with. Too limited in scope.

I wish more devs would dual launch on Itch and Steam.

So do I...

Quoting: kuhpunktAnd how low should they go?

10-20% is fair, with a higher cut as developers can opt in to additional services (forum, matchmaking, etc.) with 20-30% being the cut for all services used.

The problem is that at the basic level (which is what most developers actually use), they really just host their game and offer the community service with it - but they don't really have any work with it that would justify the high share for developers.

Quoting: randylInteresting that you hope Valve changes its fee schedule for "developers" while not mentioning all the other stores that still charge 30% (with no sliding scale like Valve) and these "poor developers" happily sell their games on.... PlayStation, Xbox, Win10 Store, iOS App Store, Google Play Store, Nintendo. What's up with singling out Valve on this? Why do gamers buy into the propaganda that this is a Valve problem?

I don't give a flying fuck about what happens on consoles or mobile - the latter hardly even qualifies as gaming to me.
The others on PC should naturally follow suit and also lower their share. This will either happen, or developers will continue to go to Epic. Or, of course, Epic's strategy fails and things go back to what they were. Hard to tell for sure at this point, but the recent developments seem to point toward Epic succeeding.

Quoting: TobiSGDIf that is your wish than be prepared for the outcomes. Valve takes 30% (as most other stores) and then reinvest that money into developing their platform, but also help with developing games, for example by providing debugging tools, and even more so, they specifically help Linux gaming, for example by hiring developers working on graphics drivers. What do you think will be cut first if Valve cuts down their income?

You have no idea about the insane amounts of cash Valve makes. Would they reduce their cut to, say, 20%, they'd still be swimming in money.
Their service is good, but not 30% good. They are just getting away with it because, so far, everyone took those 30%. Not anymore, though, which is a good development for developers. More money for the people who actually make games.

Quoting: x_wingValve already do that. If the issue was the revenue, publisher only have to set their prices 20% higher (or around that value) on Steam compared to the same game in Epic. But nope, seems that if you want to publish on Epic you must go full epic for a year... which definitely points towards that Epic subsidies the publishers.

That's just an amalgamation of misinformation.
A) You can't just sell your game at 20% higher. Game price points are a very important and sensitive variable that you can't just alter like that if you want more money.
B) Nobody forces you to go Epic exclusive, there are lots of games on EGS that aren't exclusive to it and never were. It is moderated, though, similar to GOG. Something as high profile as a Total War game certainly would've been accepted on EGS without exclusivity. But that exclusivity is highly profitable for developers/publishers, after all, they still get to release on Steam. Just later - it's like a free second release hype.

Finally, guys, don't shoot the messenger.
From a developers perspective - and most devs don't care about Linux, that's the sad truth - the Epic deal is really damn good.

Quoting: scaine(p.s. I love that this article, despite all the comments, has precisely zero likes at the time of writing this comment!)

I "liked" it, but only because I like being informed on such matters. ;)