Epic Games have announced their new Epic First Run program, to entice more developers to release on their store exclusively and give developers a boost. With this we can expect to see many more developers opt to go Epic exclusive.
The Epic First Run program will give developers 100% of the revenue, so Epic Games will not take a cut from sales on the Epic Games Store for the first 6 exclusive months. It's opt-in for developers and does not prevent them from selling it directly and selling it using keys via the likes of Green Man Gaming, Humble Store and other stores that sell keys. Naturally, this rules out Steam and GOG, which is largely the point of it to get more people to shop on the Epic Store and not Steam.
After the 6 month exclusive period is up, developers can then release elsewhere and the revenue split goes back to 88% for developers and 12% to Epic Games.
Epic also mention that they now have over 68 million monthly active users with over 230 million players. To help get word out, developers who opt into the Epic First Run program will get "new exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections" along with features in "elevant store campaigns including sales, events, and editorial as applicable".
See Epic's announcement here.
What do you think to this news?
On Linux and Steam Deck, you can use the likes of the Heroic Games Launcher to really simplify getting games from Epic since they still do not officially support either with the Epic Store.
In related news Denuvo are rolling out some special protection for Unreal Engine games.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: ZlopezI never heard about Steam doing exclusives, it's on developer/distributor to decide where they want to sell. In case of Epic they are forcing the developers/distributors to not sell anywhere else.Exactly. I've never head that Valve payed anyone for exclusive releases – they all seem to be entirely voluntary. Although I wouldn't call if forcing either.
So I don't think there is any reasonable basis to compare Steam and EGS exclusive releases.
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Mohandevir Aug 25, 2023
Quoting: KlaasQuoting: ZlopezI never heard about Steam doing exclusives, it's on developer/distributor to decide where they want to sell. In case of Epic they are forcing the developers/distributors to not sell anywhere else.Exactly. I've never head that Valve payed anyone for exclusive releases – they all seem to be entirely voluntary. Although I wouldn't call if forcing either.
So I don't think there is any reasonable basis to compare Steam and EGS exclusive releases.
Epic's problem is because they want to please to the devs only. They put as little efforts as possible to please the paying customers and try to force them on their crappy service with exclusives. Having worked in a big brand store, there was this moto: "The customer is king".
On the other hand, "Just on the other side of the Street", there is Valve that offers the best customer experience you can get and keeps on innovating and developing new services. As long as Epic won't try to mimic that and even do better, they are doomed to fail, just like EA, Ubisoft and Blizzard (they all came back to Steam, at some point). Thing is, if they ever decide to do someting similar, the 88/12 figure is not going to be sustainable anymore. Oups!
Last edited by Mohandevir on 25 August 2023 at 2:16 pm UTC
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psycho_driver Aug 26, 2023
Quoting: yndoendoI still have not purchased any former Epic exclusive releases that are now on Steam. Outer Worlds looked good, yet no respect. None of their current exclusives are inciting. With their current state, chances of me using their service is 0. Those developers will get a full 100% of that 0.
I bought Metro: Exodus since the dev came through with a linux port. I think that's the only one for me.
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Quoting: ZlopezQuoting: ridgeUltimately, a Steam exclusive sucks as much as an Epic exclusive.
I never heard about Steam doing exclusives, it's on developer/distributor to decide where they want to sell. In case of Epic they are forcing the developers/distributors to not sell anywhere else.
You're right, this is true. In my eyes it didn't really matter whether the devs accepted an exclusivity deal or not, if it's exclusive on Epic for a limited time or only on Steam because the developer isn't willing to publish somewhere else, they're both exclusives in my eyes. One is just more restrictive (and enticing to the developer) than the other.
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If I was developing a game, I would think about it honestly. No cut for early launch period, and then smaller cut than Steam takes after that.
As a general gamer, competition is a good thing. Valve is king, but let's not let it get stale. I think of Audible and their terrible anti-competitive practices (and gouging authors' profits). Valve is not doing that, thank God, but they have the market power to. We don't want that, so there needs to be other industry players running after them.
As a Linux gamer, Epic store pretty much doesn't exist. I don't even bother collecting free game keys anymore. I stopped that a couple years ago once I realized I was completely wasting my time adding virtual items to an account I never use.
As a general gamer, competition is a good thing. Valve is king, but let's not let it get stale. I think of Audible and their terrible anti-competitive practices (and gouging authors' profits). Valve is not doing that, thank God, but they have the market power to. We don't want that, so there needs to be other industry players running after them.
As a Linux gamer, Epic store pretty much doesn't exist. I don't even bother collecting free game keys anymore. I stopped that a couple years ago once I realized I was completely wasting my time adding virtual items to an account I never use.
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Quoting: 14If I was developing a game, I would think about it honestly. No cut for early launch period, and then smaller cut than Steam takes after that.Yes, but a smaller cut of what? How much visibility and how many sales would you give up on by limiting yourself to a single storefront? Would you sell >30% more copies on Steam in the first year?
Hard to say, but we can't simplify the problem by assuming that all the stores are equal and interchangeable. You might just end up with a bigger piece of a significantly smaller pie.
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benstor214 Aug 27, 2023
Quoting: 14As a general gamer, competition is a good thing.What competition are you talking about? The EGS isn’t competing against the Steam store at all. Purple Library Guy is right when he writes - and I quote
Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe 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.
To serve up a crappy analogy: If the EGS and the Steam Store would participate in the Summer Olympics and it would come to the discipline of 100 meter sprint, instead of actually running the EGS would stand on the sideline and shoot all the other athletes in trying to win a medal. Competition doesn’t work that way.
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Quoting: benstor214instead of actually running the EGS would stand on the sideline and shoot all the other athletes in trying to win a medal.Or pay them to not participate.
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Quoting: tuubiI get that. But I also get that some content creators may want Steam to have less grip on the market so that Epic's terms are more attractive in the short-term as well as strategically.Quoting: 14If I was developing a game, I would think about it honestly. No cut for early launch period, and then smaller cut than Steam takes after that.Yes, but a smaller cut of what? How much visibility and how many sales would you give up on by limiting yourself to a single storefront? Would you sell >30% more copies on Steam in the first year?
Hard to say, but we can't simplify the problem by assuming that all the stores are equal and interchangeable. You might just end up with a bigger piece of a significantly smaller pie.
I will again point out Audible. I buy audio books on Libro.fm for DRM-free but also for matter of principle against Audible's author profits terms. What if zero authors were willing to sell on Libro.fm? There would be no threat to Audible. I would be a hypocrite to say game developers should only go for maximum profits (Steam) but authors should avoid Audible.
Even though Steam treats me better than Epic store, I understand how difficult it is for other companies to take bites out of the monopoly. That is my main point, and it applies to any company that has an iron market grip, whether I like them (Valve) or not (Audible).
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Quoting: benstor214I interpret your statement to actually mean: EGS can't win due to their poor tactics, maybe so poorly that it's laughable to you. But that's still competing. Are they in their own market? No. It's the same one, and they specifically compare themselves to Steam terms. They are very much competing. You can't say they aren't just because they're so far behind.Quoting: 14As a general gamer, competition is a good thing.What competition are you talking about? The EGS isn’t competing against the Steam store at all. Purple Library Guy is right when he writes - and I quoteQuoting: Purple Library GuyThe 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.
To serve up a crappy analogy: If the EGS and the Steam Store would participate in the Summer Olympics and it would come to the discipline of 100 meter sprint, instead of actually running the EGS would stand on the sideline and shoot all the other athletes in trying to win a medal. Competition doesn’t work that way.
I'm not defending EGS. I'm defending basic logic and communication.
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