Epic Games reduce their cut for Unreal Engine games for same-day Epic Store launches

So basically Epic is still trying to please the publishers instead of the customers while the latter is the only potential source of income. Sometimes I think that want the store to be an epic fail so they can stay true to their name.

I don't have much constructive to say, but lol.

Desperate.

I can't wait for the day Epic finally throws in the towel on this. Valve has put *so much* amazing effort into Wine/Proton, GPU drivers, etc. - obviously self-serving with the Steam Deck.

I'm not about to mess with running the Epic store stuff through an unsupported setup - no shade at the Lutris, Heroic, etc. teams, but you shouldn't *have* to do this. Steam is right there and honestly works nigh-flawlessly these days. I can even run VR now! Quite literally never bothered setting up a Windows install to dual boot with with this new PC build, it's been months and I haven't missed it one bit.

I'll echo the sentiment here though: good news for publishers, but they're doing *nothing* for consumers, so why should we care?

How about Epic keep the money, and use it to "disable" Unreal 5 features, like the infamous UE5 sTuTTering®?

So basically Epic is still trying to please the publishers instead of the customers while the latter is the only potential source of income.

They've been this way from the start and it's taken them nowhere so far.

Wait, that Freeware site is actually selling games?
Cool, never noticed. Once I played through the 450 or so Windows only titles they gave me for free, that I did not have time to touch, yet, I might give it a try. Do they offer proton integration, controller remapping and native Linux support for the games they actually sell like other stores do?

Epic? More like ipecac! lol

What Epic hasn't understood since the beginning of the EGS is that the way to the publishers is through the players. The only interesting offer in the EGS for the players are the free games. But what reason do players have to buy in the EGS if the games are also offered on Steam?

Epic should have come up with something like the Steam Deck or something new in 2018 to attack Valve. But instead they just deliver a much worse service at the same price. Now already in its 6th year. How is that supposed to work? They will have to subsidize the EGS forever. From my humble point of view (I'm not a businessman), it just doesn't make sense.

Never ever have I visited the Epic games store and never ever will. I resented them when they took away Rocket league but when they started blackmailing publishers to rip games away from steam store foe exclusivity I vowed to never, ever touch that tripe of a company for as long as they are doing business.


Last edited by finaldest on 1 October 2024 at 9:51 pm UTC

Never ever have I visited the Epic games store and never ever will. I resented them when they took away Rocket league but when they started blackmailing publishers to rip games away from steam store foe exclusivity I vowed to never, ever touch that tripe of a company for as long as they are doing business.

Now now, let's not be silly about it. Using words like blackmail like this does nothing to help, because it's completely absurd. They offered exclusive deals for developers, and for a lot of developers that can mean keeping the lights on. If you're offered guaranteed money, you take it.

Epic Games reduce their cut for Unreal Engine games for same-day Epic Store launches

I'm pretty sure that is illegal and that other companies have been litigated against for this kind of thing.

So basically Epic is still trying to please the publishers instead of the customers while the latter is the only potential source of income.

They've been this way from the start and it's taken them nowhere so far.

( I think of Monty Python's Cheese Shop skit )

( https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A )

They call themselves a Game Store despite not having customers/gamers to buy stuff

Not much of a game marketplace is it?

Epic Games reduce their cut for Unreal Engine games for same-day Epic Store launches

I'm pretty sure that is illegal and that other companies have been litigated against for this kind of thing.

You'd have to show that Unreal Engine had a dominant market position in game engines, and that they were using that to unfairly tie the Epic Games Store. It's a feasible argument, but not a slam dunk.

I'll echo the sentiment here though: good news for publishers, but they're doing *nothing* for consumers, so why should we care?

Their plan is to starve Steam users of games, so you should probably care. There's definitely no reason to welcome it, of course.

It's a nice deal for publishers, but I don't care much about Epic.

itch.io is the store that really does right by developers and publishers without sacrificing the experience for players. They have a Linux client, but that doesn't even matter because every game (?) can be played without a launcher. They let publishers choose what cut they want to give itch; as far as cutting them out completely. They have all these great options for creating a store page and they've added crazy features over the years.

GOG is the store that does right by players by trying to give players as much extra as they can and ensuring DRM-free games, but publishers tend to be lazy about updating their games, and they'll offer any extra goodies on Steam anyway, so they can't get anywhere. They don't have a Linux client, but you don't need one anyway. They're nice. I like them. They have a cool mission.

Epic doesn't serve Linux players at all and requires them to work around their client. It's never a fun experience visiting their site, and I have such little trust in them. Unlike GOG, they're creating exclusives on the PC platform, which harms player choice. They're also working against Linux by not enabling their Anti-Cheat games like Fortnite for Proton, but at least they've made EAC compatible. They do free games, which is nice, and I've heard quite a few games are DRM-free, but I can't say much else good about them.

Steam is obviously favoured by Linux players due to how much effort Valve puts into the Linux experience. But a lot of the games are DRM-encumbered, which is no good. They also require you to use a launcher. But they've helped bring some noteworthy visual novels to Linux by virtue of being a popular place to publish for Japanese publishers, so I let it slide. They've got room for improvement, but Steam is a generally good experience.

DLsite is my favourite game store. DMM is my least-favourite, even below Epic.

Epic is so bad at selling games they even gave up selling their own games.

Wait, that Freeware site is actually selling games?
Cool, never noticed. Once I played through the 450 or so Windows only titles they gave me for free, that I did not have time to touch, yet, I might give it a try. Do they offer proton integration, controller remapping and native Linux support for the games they actually sell like other stores do?

The only thing that they did offer at the time was coupons that made games cheaper but that's still not enough to get people to care about buying game on their store. Also, their launcher sucks anyways and even though I've gotten it setup on the Steam Deck, I only use it when I feel like it, which is rare. I only collect their free games they offer every Thursday and that's about it.

Meanwhile in Steam-Land: Yet another Steam Deck Verified game gets unplayable.

It's funny to see how Epic Games apparently puts it all into their platform while Valve just waits & hopes for the best.

Must be very hard for you guys to see the "enemy" do exactly what you expect from Valve.

Everybody thinks this is good for publishers.
I claim they're wrong.
What Epic is doing here is probably "tying" in the legal sense and at least bundling in the informal sense.
Specifically they're tying their store to their engine to their payment provider.
This would probably be anti-competitative if they had any market cloud.
This is as good for publishers as the Windows api is Valve, IE api's are for web developers and Apple "integration" is for Apple customers.
It creates a walled garden that is fun, while it lasts...

Edit:
It's a standard market practice.
Which is really frustrating for the European commision and the DOJ, because it's more often than not also illegal.

It actually surprises me Epic does it.
Epic has a fat track record of winning large anti-trust cases, so I would expect them to have been warned of by their legal team.


Last edited by LoudTechie on 2 October 2024 at 9:33 am UTC

Meanwhile in Steam-Land: Yet another Steam Deck Verified game gets unplayable.

It's funny to see how Epic Games apparently puts it all into their platform while Valve just waits & hopes for the best.

Must be very hard for you guys to see the "enemy" do exactly what you expect from Valve.

Valve doesn't just wait they put millions of dollars into proton to get games playable on the SteamDeck and it seems to work.
Also they launched a bunch of other intiatives for it, like souping up the proprietary NVIDIA drivers, Gamescope, KDE and MESA sponsorships, the verified rating system, DXVK sponsorship, Vulkan(they're one of the founders of the Khronos project) and the SteamMachine.

Edit:
I fully understand that Windows gamers and/or developers might see Valve as a dangerous imposing passive and unmoving force, because Valve earned that reputation in the Windows space, but in the Linux gaming space we benefit quite a lot from them.
As to why they don't do this exact thing Epic did:
For Valve this is probably illegal and ineffective.
illegal:
Valve is big enough that anti-trust law applies to them and bundling services for a discount is probably a form of "tying" and thus illegal(ask Microsoft about teams and office).
Ineffective:
they tried bribing developers to support Linux for the Steam machine...


Last edited by LoudTechie on 2 October 2024 at 2:06 pm UTC