Wednesday, June 26th 2019
EPIC CEO Tim Sweeney: "Exclusives do Work"
EPIC CEO Tim Sweeney in a veritable Tweetstorm detailed EPIC's strategy on gaming exclusivity a bit more - and to listen to the CEO, EPIC is doing this as a way to break Steam's grasp on the PC games distribution market and their 30/70 distributor's cut. Asked on games exclusivity and their usage as a digital storefront strategy, Sweeney said that EPIC "believes exclusives are the only strategy that will change the 70/30 status quo at a large enough scale to permanently affect the whole game industry." He also says that this split is a "disastrous situation for developers and publishers alike."
Sweeney says that other independent storefronts that have been launched over the years (we imagine he's speaking of GOG and Humble Bundle, just to name a few), "none seem to have reached 5% of Steam's scale." He goes on to say that "this leads to the strategy of exclusives which, though unpopular with dedicated Steam gamers, do work, as established by the major publisher storefronts and by the key Epic Games store releases compared to their former Steam revenue projections and their actual console sales." His stance is that EPIC's 12/88 split is fairer for developers (stating that a 30% cut would almost totally cut into their profits), and that this additional money that enters studios' pockets will necessarily be split among "(1) reinvestment, (2) profit, and (3) price reduction", and that in this way, EPIC's solution is both proportionate to the problem, and a move that will benefit gamers in the long run.
Source:
Tim Sweeney @ Twitter
Sweeney says that other independent storefronts that have been launched over the years (we imagine he's speaking of GOG and Humble Bundle, just to name a few), "none seem to have reached 5% of Steam's scale." He goes on to say that "this leads to the strategy of exclusives which, though unpopular with dedicated Steam gamers, do work, as established by the major publisher storefronts and by the key Epic Games store releases compared to their former Steam revenue projections and their actual console sales." His stance is that EPIC's 12/88 split is fairer for developers (stating that a 30% cut would almost totally cut into their profits), and that this additional money that enters studios' pockets will necessarily be split among "(1) reinvestment, (2) profit, and (3) price reduction", and that in this way, EPIC's solution is both proportionate to the problem, and a move that will benefit gamers in the long run.
96 Comments on EPIC CEO Tim Sweeney: "Exclusives do Work"
Something doesn't add up
As for Epic's exclusives... not impressed.
For all their talk of fairer price distribution, I'll be interested once it starts meaning lower prices for us, consumers. I don't care how much money goes to whom...
I will be withholding my judgenent on that stated reason until I see it actually play out. Certainly by now there surely must be publishers and devs on Steam that have decided they will flex their muscles with Steam when the next distribution agreement comes up.?
It CAN have the side effect of making the game cheaper for gamers, as witnessed by the $59.99 price of Metro: Exodus on Steam to $49.99 on EGS. So hold off on the “full of krap” observations just now. Unless a $10 reduction in price on a AAA is not to your liking.It’s up to you, but you only have one life and in the blink of an eye, you’re old. I’d rather enjoy myself than nurse an anger ulcer.
until you run out of exclusives, then ur f***ed and have to sell the whole thing to Netflix.
tons of respect towards Tim for trying to break the status quo, as a game dev I completely support what he's trying to do in bringing the 30% cut-per-sale down to a more reasonable cut, since if Steam was to take 20% instead of 30% per sale, then developing additional content for my game would have been less of a problem (in the past), seeing as the sales back then were rather weak.
But I say fook him and fook that abomination, his store.
All hail GabeN!
If you weren't around for Steam when it first launched, it had plenty of issues and they've just had a lot of time to sort it out and make it better. When EGS has been around as long as Steam, it will also be just as user friendly and offer just as many of the things users want that Steam has to offer.
Basically it comes down to human emotion, bias, and attachment when you argue about any storefront; where that comes in for me is Origin, I absolutely despise it and have foregone all of my game purchases there because I cannot stand EA and their horrible excuse for a storefront/launcher, and just their practices in general; I prefer to buy things on GOG when possible, mostly for being DRM free and being able to play the games at any time I want and on any system I want to play them on without the need for constant connectivity.
I've been with Steam since the beginning, and while I really am not a fan of the EGS as it is now, I welcome the competition it brings to other services to improve the industry and practices (changing/breaking the status quo).
A lot of these, "Publisher" includes developer. A lot are exclusively developer (excludes publisher/distribution/taxes/etc.). "Shop" would be like Steam.
2006 example:
2010 example:
2011 example:
2012 example:
2016 indie example (Gratitous Space Battles):
However the Epic CEO,isn't as genuine as you might think he is. He wrote a hit piece on Microsoft when they opened their games store:
www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/04/microsoft-monopolise-pc-games-development-epic-games-gears-of-warHe goes on about Microsoft trying to lock down games exclusively to their new games store,and of dodgy data collection. But TBH Microsoft would be the kind of competition that could push Valve and he hated it and extolled the virtues of Steam and GOG,who he is at war with now.
Now a few years later our own MPs asked representatives of many games companies to explain themselves:
www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jun/19/mps-in-a-spin-as-games-chief-appears-to-deny-fortnite-makes-money
The Epic chap said they ignore European data collection rules,but a few years ago their own CEO attacked Microsoft for data collection.
Years later Microsoft did exactly zero what he said they would do,and they have introduced things like the XBox Games Pass for PC,which really seem a great alternative,especially for the more casual gamer.
TLDR:I wouldn't trust any of these companies too much,they seem to change the narrative according to what makes them more money.
About the only store I might be a bit of a fan is GOG,as at least they are rescuing old games,removing DRM,etc and CDPR seems like one of the few genuine games companies left.
But seeing what happened to Bioware,I shouldn't expect too much in the future.
Regardless, the people screamed bloody murder, swore they wouldn’t finish the ME series. Um, yeah.....that was exactly what people ended up NOT doing eventually, when they realized their anger was not going to get them the ability to play ME3.
It remains to this day solely on Origin, and controversy of its ending aside, a game with extremely large sales numbers.
well in the case of epic and their first exclusive metro I got it on xbox beta, see buyers choice.
This was the impetus for the (now failed/abandoned) Steam OS and Steam controller. He worried MS walled garden code would eventually lock out anything not distributed through MS store.
How quickly people forget. :rolleyes: