EPIC CEO Tim Sweeney: "Exclusives do Work"

[rtwjunkie]

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:

Actually Gabe did the same thing. In fact he spoke out even more prolifically and strongly against MS doing this.

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.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I remember the huuuuge outcry that ME3 was going to only be on the new store Origin. (Or was it ME2?).

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.

Mass Effect: A Sales History

Welcome to the second new weekly feature, “A Sales History.” The other weekly feature is the “Top 10 [...]

www.vgchartz.com

Mass Effect 1 sold better on PC than Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect 1 and 2 were on Steam but neither got DLCs on Steam. Mass Effect 2 DLCs were mostly via Bioware Points.

The loss in sales by being Origin exclusive is made up by not paying 30% to Steam.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Mass Effect 2 DLCs were mostly via Bioware Points.

Which at the time was the most aggravating distrubution I had yet to see in gaming. Add to that the abysmal download rates from EA and it was frustrating.

 

[TheOne]

EA did eventually put ME2 back on Steam.

I didn't even know they had pulled ME2, but they also put Cyrsis 2 back after they released the Maximum Edition.

 

[64K]

I didn't even know they had pulled ME2, but they also put Cyrsis 2 back after they released the Maximum Edition.

Oops I was thinking Crysis 2 but typed ME2

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Actually Gabe did the same thing. In fact he spoke out even more prolifically and strongly against MS doing this.

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.

The problem is the Epic CEO was saying Microsoft was going to make games exclusive,destroy Steam,GOG,etc and was involved in harvesting data BEFORE he had his own game store. The thing is at least Valve made Linux gamer more viable as a response,hence the Linux port of the Steam store and the Valve program to make as many games Linux compatible. The Proton program which has made nearly 10000 games compatible on Linux so far.

Epic does not even care for Linux gaming,so we still have this "Microsoft monopoly on gaming". I thought Epic wanted us to move away from Windows as it was a monopoly.

3 years later he is extolling exclusives and told our own MPs in the UK that European data protection laws don't apply to the company. Even our own MPs went LOLWTF. How quickly people forget!

Loyalty to a man who has no loyalty to you, only your money. Interesting.

Exactly,so this should also apply to Epic too. So at this point I am uncertain why people want to make Tim Sweeney seem like a knight in shining armour,at worst he is no better than Valve who ligitimised having always online DRM all the time for every single player game and even worse as he mocked Microsoft and did what he accused them of doing and then made his own store. Microsoft ended up not doing what Epic or Valve said they were going to do.


Then this year he said this:

Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, has declared that Epic Games will win the battle for best digital storefront based on its relationship with developers, not with customers.

What's the likelihood in 10 years time Epic gamestore will have replaced Steam,Gabe Newell decides to not bother anymore(just like with their games) and we are all moaning that Epic store is exclusive and needs more competition??

The saddest aspect of this is not enough people are supporting GOG and it literally makes very little money. I hope with Cyberpunk people try and support CDPR and GOG by buying from the store. If not for all the noise about competition GOG will die out and we have one less storefront left.

If people want more competition support the smaller storefronts,local bricks and mortar games stores,etc.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So at this point I am uncertain why people want to make Tim Sweeney seem like a knight in shining armour,at worst he is no better than Valve who ligitimised having always online DRM all the time for every single player game and even worse as he mocked Microsoft and did what he accused them of doing and then made his own store. Microsoft ended up not doing what Epic or Valve said they were going to do.

He is no Knight to me. I do like your point about the alternative being no better than Gabe and Valve/Steam. I can totally agree he falls in the “no better than” category. That’s been my point all along. No way people can call him a pile of dog doo and extoll the heroic virtues of Newell without lying to themselves.

The fact MS hasn’t YET walled off outside game distributors and/or devs not under their umbrella is not a reason to give them hugs. MS still is the big bad untrustworthy uncle in the room (as long as Cousin Google isn’t there too, but I digress).

Gabe claims to have done serious study of W10 code and said MS could shut everyone out whenever they want. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that because I haven’t studied it.

The saddest aspect of this is not enough people are supporting GOG and literally makes very little money. I hope with Cyberpunk people try and support CDPR and GOG by buying from the store.

Yup, GOG does need some love, but in the last couple years they have been gathering more and more biggi-ish games to the store, along with a large number of high-quality Indy games. I buy as much as I can from them.

 

[ZoneDymo]

He conveniently leaves out the fact that Steam gives game developers free steam keys to their games so they can be sold at other storefronts.

ermm steam only does this to lure more people to the steam platform, gotta get this clients away from the physical stores and into the digital store called steam, cuz more money.
its basically using the devs as advertisement soooo yeah.

 

[Camm]

Well his strategy has backfired, there is a very vocal and large contingent that refuse to buy games from his service now.

Maybe should have, you know, developed a storefront that actually had some features.

And considering they've extended their free game thing until the end of the year, honestly, I don't think they are seeing the user engagement they thought they had.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

He is no Knight to me. I do like your point about the alternative being no better than Gabe and Valve/Steam. I can totally agree he falls in the “no better than” category. That’s been my point all along. No way people can call him a pile of dog doo and extoll the heroic virtues of Newell without lying to themselves.

The fact MS hasn’t YET walled off outside game distributors and/or devs not under their umbrella is not a reason to give them hugs. MS still is the big bad untrustworthy uncle in the room (as long as Cousin Google isn’t there too, but I digress).

Gabe claims to have done serious study of W10 code and said MS could shut everyone out whenever they want. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that because I haven’t studied it.

Yup, GOG does need some love, but in the last couple years they have been gathering more and more biggi-ish games to the store, along with a large number of high-quality Indy games. I buy as much as I can from them.

Yeah,but if Microsoft is competition its still important to consider them as its competition to Valve,Epic and everyone else. Even Stadia is another kind of competition. Epic needs to be kept in line as much as Valve. Just see what happened with Unreal Engine,as hardly any competitor can compete with the artificially low licensing costs,as Epic has enough money from Fortnite and Tencent to be able to do this,and they can throw money at it to tempt devs to use it over other engines. Crytek can't compete and it looks like Unity are probably going that way too.

 

[rtwjunkie]

there is a very vocal and large contingent

Correction very vocal contingent. Period. Don’t mistake noise for numbers. They are doing very well financially.

And considering they've extended their free game thing until the end of the year, honestly, I don't think they are seeing the user engagement they thought they had.

A couple years ago Origin had a free game a week for about 6 months IIRC. No big deal, really.

Crytek can't compete

Crytek can’t compete because of a multitude of other reasons, the largest is they are horrible employers and horrible at business.

 

[Midland Dog]

says the company thats apparently all for cross platform, tim scummy

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Crytek can’t compete because of a multitude of other reasons, the largest is they are horrible employers and horrible at business.

I am talking about the licensing of the engine,not their games and if you think Crytek are poor employers,you might want to see the working conditions at many large studios which are horrendous,ie,the constant "crunch time" stories you hear all the time. The publishers make most of the money out of the games,not the developers who get paid just for the game development in most cases,unless you self publish. The publishers are some of the worst offenders here - a game can be very successful and they still fire people and shut down studios. Its all about promising ever expanding margins each quarter to their shareholders.

Epic dramatically slashed its engine licensing costs to below what most other companies could bare a few years ago and has thrown money at developers to use its engine,as they don't need to make big money from it due to the money from its games, and its venture funding from companies like Tencent. It pretty much means one by one all of the third party engines are falling by the wayside as those companies need to actually make enough money from their engines and they can't compete financially.

So it is imperative that we have companies like Microsoft and Google also serve as competition for games distribution too - like I said before it keeps Valve and Epic real,and the latter can keep Microsoft and Google real too.

 

[Vayra86]

Sweeney should get numbers to do the talking. He really shouldn't talk too much.

He is not wrong though.

Yeah, no. I remember Origin & Uplay launches. We didn't have the scale and volume of discontent that Epic is maintaining.

Meh... that is how long ago? its a different time now, everyone is vocal.

 

[Camm]

Correction very vocal contingent. Period. Don’t mistake noise for numbers. They are doing very well financially.

Yeah, no. I remember Origin & Uplay launches. We didn't have the scale and volume of discontent that Epic is maintaining.

 

[rtwjunkie]

if you think Crytek are poor employers,you might want to see the working conditions at many large studios which are horrendous,ie,the constant "crunch time" stories you hear all the time. The publishers make most of the money out of the games,not the developers who get paid just for the game development in most cases,unless you self publish. The publishers are some of the worst offenders here - a game can be very successful and they still fire people and shut down studios. Its all about promising ever expanding margins each quarter to their shareholders.

None of this is news to me. I’ve been aware of this for many years.

 

[rtwjunkie]

like I said before it keeps Valve and Epic real,and the latter can keep Microsoft and Google real too.

Agreed. They all have a place and a role, which has been my point since EGS showed up.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I'm probably one of the few, but this is how I treat EGS and games that sign into exclusivity deals:

I won't support EPIC since they pay developers to exclusively lock games to EGS for a period of time (6 months, a year or whatever time length they agree upon).
I won't purchase any game that does an exclusivity deal (paid contract to only sell on), even after the game leaves it's locked in contract and moves to other platforms.
(I'm not shunning publishers/developers, just not paying for any game they lock into an exclusivity deal)

As for Steam, I've purchased very little from Steam over the past 18 months

Here are my last 5 purchases on Steam:
* Grim Dawn - Forgotten Gods expansion (4/14/2019)
* SCUM (8/31/2018) - I waited for a few patches, but the game never functioned properly with 2D Surround so I refunded it, anyway, I didn't think it was fun in the 90 minutes I played with friends
* FarCry 4 (2/17/2018) - I can't remember if I beat the game because it was so unforgettable, I put 14 hours into.....just don't remember if I beat it.
*Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (11/28/17) - not as fun as I thought it would be, I thought Human Revolution was decent, but I couldn't get into Mankind Divided
*Grim Dawn - Ashes of Malmouth expansion (11/17/2017)

I'm not against activating games on Steam, I just don't really want to give them any more money. I buy on Fanatical, HumbleBundle and GMG, as well, but I've been sticking with GoG for the most part.

 

[INSTG8R]

The saddest aspect of this is not enough people are supporting GOG and it literally makes very little money. I hope with Cyberpunk people try and support CDPR and GOG by buying from the store. If not for all the noise about competition GOG will die out and we have one less storefront left

Ob I’ve already bought Cyberpunk on GoG. They can have my money now rather than later.

 

[Jism]

What's the problem here? 30%? Make a great game that sells for a million copies and we're talking huge profits. Not like one game with 30% is going to cut any of the profits the bigger studios make. But steam provides a complete service for years, for every gamer, funded basicly by those same 30%. An update? steam is providing the bandwidth for years in order for you to download or update your game as fast as possible.

Want cheaper? Make competition.

 

[Crackong]

Exclusives does work.
But Timed Exclusives does not.

They made it "Timed" because they know you the EPIC store cannot be trusted for the whole lifespan of their product.

 

[zlobby]

Loyalty to a man who has no loyalty to you, only your money. Interesting.

GabeN, his products and services never did me wrong, not even once.
Fair policies, refunds, good sales. Epic, on the other hand...

 

[SIGSEGV]

I just buy cheap games. DRM free is always my priority. don't care if it steam, ubisoft or even epic.

 

[dj-electric]

To my generation, Epic (megagames) used to mean amazing gameplay, graphics and computer graphics innovation.
To the next one, greed.

 

[silentbogo]

There is sometimes a disconnect between what people say they are going to do on forums and what they actually do. I suspect quite a few people who are railing against EGS probably got an account there anyway just to play the present exclusives and future exclusives.

I'm against EGS, but I've revived my 5 y.o. account to dumpster-hoard free bi-weekly indie games, cause why not.
Even the reason I registered was a clickbait by Sweeney (UT, never finished, now defunct).
Epic hasn't made any viable progress with their storefront to give me reason to spend real money there.

I remember the huuuuge outcry that ME3 was going to only be on the new store Origin. (Or was it ME2?).

And that's the reason it sold worse on PC than ME1. Lots of people did not buy it and years later simply forgot about it.
It was a financial success, but most of that money comes from an XB audience, just like with 2 previous and 1 following titles and PC success/failure doesn't make much difference on the grand scale.