Friday, December 7th 2018
Epic Games Begins Moving its Games Off Steam and on to its Own Store Platform
Epic Games is moving its entire collection of digitally-sold games away from Steam, and on to its own new store+DRM platform rivaling Steam, Origin, and UPlay. The new Epic Games Store plans not only to sell games published by Epic, but also other third-party publishers, to whom Epic is promising an 88% revenue share (keeping a 12% thin margin for handing DRM, unlimited downloads, and update patch distribution). For comparison, Steam rakes in a 30% margin. Epic is offering additional incentives to third-party game studios who use Unreal Engine. Epic Games titles are being pulled out from Steam store. The move does not affect people who already own Epic titles on Steam, as future re-installs and patch updates will continue.
58 Comments on Epic Games Begins Moving its Games Off Steam and on to its Own Store Platform
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_by_Epic_Games
The old ones are on GOG and they're probably staying there. Unreal/Unreal Tournament are still on Steam. Gears of War was contractually created with Microsoft so they were never on Steam and never will be on Steam.
Bulletstorm was never on Steam because it was made after Origin was created and Electronic Arts stopped putting their games on Steam.
Shadow Complex Remastered is still on Steam
Robo Recall was paid for by Occulus as a promotional game for the Rift. It was never on Steam and likely never will be on Steam.
In other words, Epic has removed nothing from Steam so far. What inspired this news article? Did Epic say they were going to pull games? If so, what? When?Cite an example.
Ubisoft still keeps their games on all of the platforms because of exposure. More eyeballs means more revenue even if a larger share of it goes to a competitor. Electronic Arts shot itself in the foot by narrowing itself to Origin only. EA is mostly a mobile company anymore. Their presence in the PC space is small and shrinking. Most of their revenue comes from the EA Sports brand:
seekingalpha.com/article/4216197-electronic-arts-ea-q2-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=4
seekingalpha.com/article/4216153-electronic-arts-inc-2019-q2-results-earnings-call-slides
2019, EA only has 7 announced games coming out: Unravel Two (low budget, low income), FIFA 19 (low budget, high income), Madden NFL 19 (low budget, high income), NBA Live 19 (low budget, high income), NHL 19 (low budget, high income), Battlefield V (moderate budget, moderate income), and Anthem (high budget, hoping high income).
Look at what titles they're promoting to investors:
EA has effectively become a shovelware company but instead of cheap asset swapped Unity games, they're licensed sports games, Battlefield, and The Sims.
Anthem is likely EA's last Hail Mary pass. If it is a market flop, Bioware is likely getting closed and EA will be done with narrative games.
use to if you wanted a game you would go to newegg or wal- mart or a store . buy the game full retail disk get home stick the game disk in your opt, drive load it up enter a key code [if it even required that foir single player ] then click play and play the games ,. ''I'' own the full game software not a account or need to go to a 3ed party if I loose it like a hd fail I hold the full game disk to load at my conveyance not theres .
you did not need steam , uplay or origin . you did not need internet connection you did not need a malware client you did not need to download something for hrs no 3ed party involvement tio ''allow '' you to play or even begin to load it [ you got the full game on the disk ] . I could mP just as easy I could get a patch if I wanted [ not forced by the likes of steam ] no client collecting my data and no telling what else .
but yet you don't like that at all . se all this steam type 'digital download games are what the X-Box babysitter generation got hooked on and all they know not how real pc games were and sold to be use in private not a 3ed party granting you the use as they see fit and cancel you out at any time .
only way I could lose any of my games / fully use them is if I lose or damage the disk [ and I'm not that careless ] not because something or someone from steam blacklisted me then what ? me . I just load and go forever
todays games are chump bait sorry to say , but hay, you ask for it and wanted all that so now you got it ...booo hooo
like I said what if your drive fails and steam closes your account / what do you got then ? I got my full retail disks to load right up and go not hope steam allows me to
I forgot + the time trying to download all tht to hope to retrieve them ? what a joke I just stick the disk in and in 5 min I'm playing not waiting for steam and there content and downloads and all that mess
There's nothing sad about saving space. This is even more important for someone who doesn't live somewhere affordable like me. Other people can't even use bookshelves or wall units. The average person in Japan or something is squeezed into a dehumanizing crevice and they call it an "apartment".
You have a point somewhat: One should have a good backup system. But that has nothing to do with cd-based media.
Even if Epic doesn't force developers on their launcher to agree to a written contract forbidding them from selling on other launchers and bludgeon them with take-down requests there's the consumer aspect of the problem. The problem being is that the market is already oversaturated(or at least perceived to be so by consumers) with launchers. Even if you disagree with the market being oversaturated with launchers a lot of PC gamers are annoyed with the addition of yet...another launcher. It's not hard to find multiple comments of annoyed gamers whenever a new launcher is announced. Which you'll probably download such said launcher again, register an account again, verify it again, hand out your card/paypal information again, then FINALLY get to play that "one game" you can't get on the other dozen or so launchers already out there. When you're done playing it you'll never touch the launcher again unless forced to, because ultimately you'll be shopping/browsing on Steam or Amazon because their game library extends beyond a dozen games(maybe add a few if you include indie titles).
You want to reconsider bulletstorm never being on PC there bud? It takes, what, 5 second to google "bulletstorm removed from steam"? Scratch that, it is CURRENT FOR SALE ON STEAM.
Other MS games are on steam, GoW being made for MS does not preclude it from a steam release, see several halo games and AoE IIHD. It was never released because the PC port was worse then no mans sky, so abysmal it killed the series on PC for years.
If Epic has begun removing games from steam, or announced it will, then there is a likely chance of the games being removed from GoG as well.
The game satisfactory was removed from steam, link here "www.gamerevolution.com/news/467301-epic-games-store-exclusive-steam"
So there is your example bud.
Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition = Gearbox Software = Steam
The latter is a remaster. Bulletstorm: Full Clip Won't Be a Free Upgrade on PC, Here's WhySatisfactory never launched though so that hardly qualifies. The OP makes it sound like Unreal Tournament (or some other big Epic Games titles on Steam) were removed when that isn't the case. A lot of future games may not launch on Steam now, especially from devs like Coffee Stain Studio that exclusively use Unreal Engine because that 12% is so damn attractive. Every sale they make on Steam versus Epic Games Store loses the developer 23% in revenue (30% goes to Steam, 5% goes to Epic Games for using their engine = 35% for selling the same game on Steam versus 12% for selling on Epic Games Store = 23% difference in how much developers pocket per sale) even if the retail price is identical. That's incentive enough to make most new Unreal Engine based games go exclusively to Epic Games Store.
In the short term, that kind of sucks, but in the long term, I think it's going to force Steam to cut their share which is long, long overdue.
As for the new store, competition is a good thing. Not sure what it will take for me to buy something elsewhere when its available on Steam. I purchase most of my stuff from 3rd party sites which tend to sell Steam keys (unless its a rare platform specific title). isthereanydeal.com/
www.gamespot.com/articles/bulletstorm-removed-from-steam-but-why/1100-6418469/
Making things even more weird, Origin has "Battlestorm - Lite" which is apparently a derivative of "Battlestorm: Full Clip Edition" because the marketing material and publisher (Gearbox Publishing) refence it:
www.origin.com/usa/en-us/store/bulletstorm/bulletstorm-lite
I'm getting the impression Epic Games had nothing to do with it other than licensing the engine. People Can Fly own the rights to it and have made it available on multiple distribution platforms under multiple titles. Epic Games doesn't have the authority to remove it from any store because it's not their title. The original point stands that no Epic Games title has been named that has actually been removed due to the creation of Epic Games Store.
Digging deeper: People Can Fly released Bulletstorm via EA in 2011, they were bought by Epic Games becoming Epic Games Poland in 2012, they went back to independent under the name People Can Fly in 2015, and they created the Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition via Gearbox Publishing in 2017.
then like I said no malware clients involved or internet comnnnection needed .. ya steam is sooo good [for them ]
then the guy above said ''I've had this account since they literally started Steam. Over a decade now. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon ''
so when the rest like epic ditches them they may still be there with crickets chirping [???]
all I know is if a game was sold like it was in the real pc game days with no ''steam'' strings attached no internet required I'd have -0- issue paying 100 bucks for it well before I'd give the likes of ''steam '' 9.99$ for it .
I posted this before look at what you agree to
you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
For reasons that include, without limitation, system security, stability, and multiplayer interoperability, Steam may need to automatically update, pre-load, create new versions of or otherwise enhance the Content and Services and accordingly, the system requirements to use the Content and Services may change over time. You consent to such automatic updating
key words in that --- ''' without limitation '' ---- system security -- stability ? think lontg and hard on what you gave some one somewhere in the world access to ''without limitation ''
you can fool your self all you want but your not going to convince or fool me . I don't need to game that bad in any way to give up something as that , they can keep there crap buggy gamesmaybe if you lived in a 6x8 cell I guess your right
then the guy above said ''I've had this account since they literally started Steam. Over a decade now. I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon ''
so when the rest like epic ditches them they may still be there with crickets chirping [???]
all I know is if a game was sold like it was in the real pc game days with no ''steam'' strings attached no internet required I'd have -0- issue paying 100 bucks for it well before I'd give the likes of ''steam '' 9.99$ for it .
I posted this before look at what you agree to
you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
For reasons that include, without limitation, system security, stability, and multiplayer interoperability, Steam may need to automatically update, pre-load, create new versions of or otherwise enhance the Content and Services and accordingly, the system requirements to use the Content and Services may change over time. You consent to such automatic updating
key words in that --- ''' without limitation '' ---- system security -- stability ? think lontg and hard on what you gave some one somewhere in the world access to ''without limitation ''
you can fool your self all you want but your not going to convince or fool me . I don't need to game that bad in any way to give up something as that . they can keep there crap buggy games , i'll keep my privacy and money