Epic Games' new exclusive deal gives devs 100% for 6 months

Eh, whatever. I only use their website to get free games. I have not bought a game on Epic and I never will. I can be VERY patient.

So how much of that somewhat impressive monthly statistic are just playing Fortnite?

I NEVER do business with people who propose a BAD DEAL.

Especially a BAD DEAL for THEM.

Oh you'll paint my house for $500? -- yeah sorry, no.

If I was a publisher, my respect for EG would have just dropped -- nobody can stay in business working for free.

And who wants to deal with resentful angry "I did it for free" vibes -- the money is exchanged as a assurance that the person will shut the fuck up and do their job providing you with value.

Great for the devs for obvious reasons (MONEY!) but awful for the costumers because of all that disgusting exclusivity.

If I was a publisher, my respect for EG would have just dropped -- nobody can stay in business working for free.

Fortnite and Tencent can provide a lot of money. And EG saves a lot of money by relying on Steam for features – like Epic exclusive games with a Forum on Steam.

And it's not really completely free. It's a loss leader.

Great for the devs for obvious reasons (MONEY!) but awful for the costumers because of all that disgusting exclusivity.

Quite ambiguous for the devs. At best. Exclusivity in itself is a cost to developers. A really significant one when it means you're only releasing on a little also-ran store and not on Steam where the people who will actually buy your game are. Sure, you get to release on Steam in 6 months, but first, you may have lost a certain momentum by then, you'll have to try to rebuild your "releasing the game" buzz from scratch and you may fail--and worse, some people will be aware of your exclusive and be annoyed about it. And second, even if you can get all the sales on Steam that you would have gotten, there's still cashflow; is a typical indie developer fine with delaying their main paycheck an extra 6 months?

In return you get no up-front payment for exclusivity, just a small extra percentage on your rather limited Epic store sales. If I were releasing a game, it would not in my opinion be worth it.

I'm fine with time limited exclusives. I just got a feeling some devs were completely going Epic and never bringing their games to Steam. I wish Epic would treat us seriously and offer a Linux client. Otherwise I will say no thanks.

I would prefer to not play games anymore at all than use their game store.

Exclusivity in itself is a cost to developers. A really significant one when it means you're only releasing on a little also-ran store and not on Steam where the people who will actually buy your game are.

Bingo. The adage come to mind -- cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It's like a 6 year old -- you offer them 2 choices -- they can get 6 money (dimes and quarters) or only 1/2 of a $20 bill.

Children will think the 6 money is more, when it's not even comparable.

Sure, you get to release on Steam in 6 months, but first, you may have lost a certain momentum by then, you'll have to try to rebuild your "releasing the game" buzz from scratch and you may fail--and worse, some people will be aware of your exclusive and be annoyed about it

To go along with that thought, there are games on EG that people don't even know exist -- like Kingdom Hearts 3.

And to go along with consumer pshycology, once something is no longer a fad, and someone has waited 6 months or 1 year -- what's the difference between waiting even longer for a sale?

Final Fantasy VII signed a exclusivity deal and I think I bought a copy in the bargain bin a extra 6-months or 12-months out.

The 2nd chapter -- still haven't bought. I'll probably wait for it go to on sale again 50-75% off in a year or two.

Same goes for things with Denuvo, DRM, or EAC -- Yeah, no, I don't need to feed the beasts -- why would I pay for something that is not guaranteed to work and comes with no warranty?

There's a lot of fish in the game sea.

If I was a publisher, my respect for EG would have just dropped -- nobody can stay in business working for free.

Fortnite and Tencent can provide a lot of money. And EG saves a lot of money by relying on Steam for features – like Epic exclusive games with a Forum on Steam.

And it's not really completely free. It's a loss leader.

Yeah about that ...

The CCP government recently siphoned all the money out of Tencent (6m-1y) (Which they can do because corporations in china are part of the government by law.)

Again, the problem with paying nothing for something -- is that it creates disparity -- or actual modern day slavery.

Disparity occurs when deals are not fair. Ethically, really bad things happen when one party wins too much at the other's expense. (In this case my empathy is with the foreign workers and employees who just want a living wage.)

Edit: This is really just communism 101 -- drop prices to attempt to drive competition out of business, power companies, baby formula / whatever -- and then once you have a monopoly raise prices to unfair levels. The idea of the state subsidizing failure also comes to mind -- like when a company makes airplanes that have aeronautic defects that cause them to crash -- and the state shows up to pay to keep the company in business when they are on a collision course with bankruptcy.

Anything that is not worthy of staying in business -- and can be destroyed -- should be destroyed. The big players shouldn't be subsidized to continue to fail creating abusive relationships with customers and employees. If they can't make it -- survival of the fittest -- tough luck, they will be replaced with more worthy businesses.


Last edited by ElectricPrism on 23 Aug 2023 at 8:06 pm UTC

I'm *still* mad at them buying out the developers of Rocket League and basically forcing them to stop supporting the Linux port.

So, no thank you.

Epic is a scourge, and anything I can do to deprive them of money is my pleasure. I've hated them since they lied to us repeatedly for years after the 2007 release of Unreal Tournament 3. When they were boxed in a corner, and couldn't lie anymore, then they finally admitted there was going to be no Linux client.

Then they made the Gears of War franchise XBox exclusive. They announced it late too, soon before release. I had been eagerly awaiting Gears of War 2.

Now they are engaging in unfair business practices to get publishers to use their store.

Also, any game company that takes the Epic exclusive carrot I'll wait until they are offered at desperation sale prices, if ever, before I'll buy anything from those companies. I caved for Tiny Tina's Wonderlands out of boredom (and love of the franchise, the way it used to be), but was I ever sorry I did. The game turned out to be a royal burn. So now I am completely resolved on this.


Last edited by Grogan on 23 Aug 2023 at 8:57 pm UTC

While i still despise artificial exclusivity, 6 months is not that bad. I mean, for many games that is about the time it takes to go from beta ("Release") to a somewhat finished state, so...

I would gladly pay twice as much for a product to buy it on Steam. Valve cares about the community and proves it over and over. My loyalty to them is iron clad.

All EGS has archived over the last years is reducing developer income by swamping the marked with way to many free games that drain away the one limited resource: disposable time. While exclusive deals are annoying from a User perspective in the past their exclusive deals where kind of early access status anyway and if that leads to more polished games entering a less overhyped open marked a few months later this might be a net gain for consumers.
Still smells a bit desperate, does it not?

I hate the Epic Games Store. It's such a chore to even sign in to claim the two free games a month that I stopped doing it a long time ago. Heroic Games Launcher is actually nicely designed and fast.

There are also no Linux games on EGS. I like GOG because it's the only big store (aside from Itch) that gives you the game files you can copy and launch yourself, but EGS doesn't do that. I struggle to find a single positive thing to say about EGS, because I can't even say competition is a good thing. If EGS somehow starts beating Steam, everything is worse for everyone.

Competition is only a good thing when the competitor is pedaling something you want. EGS fails to serve any of my needs or wants. Steam, GOG, and Itch all serve varying numbers of my needs and wants to varying degrees.

What I don't understand, is why they won't just hire a few good developers and make the platform enticing for users: if they would have feature parity with Steam, I would be a lot less hostile to them. Money can't be the issue because EG store has been a money sink for as long as it has existed.

What I don't understand, is why they won't just hire a few good developers and make the platform enticing for users: if they would have feature parity with Steam, I would be a lot less hostile to them. Money can't be the issue because EG store has been a money sink for as long as it has existed.

It's an interesting question. I can't help feeling it's actually a personal or corporate-culture style/instinct thing. The person or zeitgeist in charge of Epic, Sweeney or whatever cabal of suits, does not think about profit-making as something that's related to satisfying customers. Rather, they seem to think in terms of cunning tricks and shortcuts.

(There must be some kind of separation between broader management and whoever's in charge of keeping Fortnite going, because I get the impression that whatever one thinks about the game, devs really work hard to keep stuff flowing to hold the players' attention. Mind you, if I were Sweeney et al., I would have a superstitious fear of disturbing anything around the goose laying them golden eggs)

I hate the Epic Games Store. It's such a chore to even sign in to claim the two free games a month that I stopped doing it a long time ago. Heroic Games Launcher is actually nicely designed and fast.

There are also no Linux games on EGS. I like GOG because it's the only big store (aside from Itch) that gives you the game files you can copy and launch yourself, but EGS doesn't do that.

I just claim them using the website.

Most of the freebies I have been interested in have been free of DRM and doesn't require the client. I just exfiltrate them using legendary and run them with Wine/Proton as I see fit.

Does 100% include the tax part (VAT) ? Because even if Epic don't take its 12%, tax office will takes its cut (around 20% in most countries, at least the one I know)