Epic Store will stop exclusives if Steam changes revenue split, CEO says

FlyByKnight

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been making some bold claims on Twitter, which is always fun for spectators and perhaps terrifying for investors. Once again, the subject is the Epic Games Store's divisive exclusivity strategy, which has ruffled feathers while taking a fair number of prominent games off Steam. Sweeney claims all of that will end if Steam commits to an 88 percent revenue share for developers. 

Source: PC Gamer

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Asm0deus

Guessing things are not going as well as the Epic Store hoped?

ChildoftheShadows

Asm0deus said:

Guessing things are not going as well as the Epic Store hoped?

No, just letting the public know there is something steam can do about it. 

Asm0deus

ChildoftheShadows said:

Asm0deus said:

Guessing things are not going as well as the Epic Store hoped?

No, just letting the public know there is something steam can do about it. 

Dunno sounds like it not bringing in as much cash as they hoped so they are offering to drop exclusivity in order to decrease steams revenue to something more inline with theirs.

ChildoftheShadows

Asm0deus said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Asm0deus said:

Guessing things are not going as well as the Epic Store hoped?

No, just letting the public know there is something steam can do about it. 

Dunno sounds like it not bringing in as much cash as they hoped so they are offering to drop exclusivity in order to decrease steams revenue to something more inline with theirs.

Well of course it sounds that way to you, you are looking for that type of news and desperately want it to happen. Just the number of sales they've received from the currently released exclusives is enough to keep going and that doesn't include the amount of money continually earn from their engine and Fortnite

Grasping at straws I say.

You do realize that Epic Games has been battling the 30% issue for a number of years now? It wasn't big news until Microsoft tried pushing new rules onto windows game development to use their store. Tim Sweeny wrote a big article about it and how Microsoft was trying to strongarm developers into using their store so they could earn a profit from their work. When they released Fortnite on mobile they deliberately avoided the Play Store, would have done the same with iOS except, well we all know Apple is king at ripping people off. They also didn't put Fortnite on Steam because of it.

I know you guys think Epic Games is anti-consumer, but you are really really missing the big picture.

foppotee

I'm not saying that Steam doesn't take too much, but this Sweeney fellow trying to ride this white-horse argument now instead of prior to their exclusivity dealing is a bit of trying to have their cake & eat it too while trying to avoid any potential blame. 

Epic's Sweeney's attempt of "Hey players, it isn't your fault & it isn't ours neither even though we made the decision but we're going to have to burn you players so blame Steam."

Again, I understand Epic Games' stance, & other developers, & even agree with Steam probably taking too much of the financial pie, but Epic Games' chose to deal with it with this "exclusivity" method so reap the pros & cons that go along with it.  This method isn't good for players/consumers & Epic Games kew that & went ahead anyways.

LackingMMO

How are they "burning the players" again? I mean I think epic deserves some crap for other things but the store isn't one of them lol.  

ChildoftheShadows

foppotee said:

I'm not saying that Steam doesn't take too much, but this Sweeney fellow trying to ride this white-horse argument now instead of prior to their exclusivity dealing is a bit of trying to have their cake & eat it too while trying to avoid any potential blame. 

Epic's Sweeney's attempt of "Hey players, it isn't your fault & it isn't ours neither even though we made the decision but we're going to have to burn you players so blame Steam."

Again, I understand Epic Games' stance, & other developers, & even agree with Steam probably taking too much of the financial pie, but Epic Games' chose to deal with it with this "exclusivity" method so reap the pros & cons that go along with it.  This method isn't good for players/consumers & Epic Games kew that & went ahead anyways.

It's always been about getting all the "stores" to lower their strangle hold on developers. Period.

Albatroes

Solar_Prophet

You know, if they just came out and admitted that buying exclusivity is about flaunting the money they're getting from the ChiComs, I'd have at least some respect for Epic. Instead they insult people's intelligence by claiming it's about being 'pro consumer'. Frankly, if you buy that crap you're a f*cking idiot. 

Take your patronizing bullshit & ChiCom spyware and shove it up hard, Epic. 

Wizardry

Guess Steam and Epic seem to forget one part of the equation....the consumer.It is like a business war between the two instead of both being a good solution for gamer's.

DataDay

He is not wrong. Developers take the epic store seriously due to the fact Valve still takes a 30% cut, while Epic (and Discord) goes for the 10-12% range. Game making is risky these days, big publishers can take the risk but they are also incentivized into coming up with scummy business practices, and the little guys (indie devs) get hurt the most by Steam's 30% cut.

Valve simply has to compete by taking the same cut Epic/discord are taking. Furthermore, Valve has gotten lazy over the years. They don't even develop games as a source of revenue anymore, its all just easy "distribution" money (that 30% cut). Maybe them taking less will encourage them to finally give us Half Life 3.

RexKushman

Solar_Prophet said:

You know, if they just came out and admitted that buying exclusivity is about flaunting the money they're getting from the ChiComs, I'd have at least some respect for Epic. Instead they insult people's intelligence by claiming it's about being 'pro consumer'. Frankly, if you buy that crap you're a f*cking idiot. 

Take your patronizing bullshit & ChiCom spyware and shove it up hard, Epic. 

This x1000. 

FlyByKnight

This is the stupidest contrived thing I've seen in business and that's including the stuff I've seen from one of the most hated cable/internet/telecom providers.

If you have a better product, better splits, live and die by your sword. Steam is standing firm so do the same.

The fact that they're even putting this out there like it's some crusade for justice is laughable and insulting to anyone with sense. First injecting and initiating exclusivity wars into a general market (not talking about studio made games), then having the f#$%ing nards to make demands like they have hostages?

For me, now it's F#$% EPIC, and the collateral damage. Now I want to see them all crash and burn. That Fortnite money has definitely gone to somebodies head. Totally routing against, and I won't deny it.

ChildoftheShadows

Solar_Prophet said:

... intelligence ... 

Oh the irony in your post.

BruceYee

More like the sales for the exclusive games have stalled and they are trying to make it seem like something else to make themselves look like the good guys.

Steam should not do anything then just wait and see 1-2 months down the line they'll release the exclusives in a way that makes them look good pr wise. They'll probably say something like.."We've decided to release our exclusive deals for the good of the developer" or something like that while not mentioning that they weren't able to meet expectations for sales through their shop.

Also, where do they get off trying to bargain with other people's games AND try to dictate how much Steam can charge for THEIR service by holding other people's games as ransom. That is some next level ____ tactics right there.

Xasapis

I wonder if any of the exclusive games on Epic store actually managed to achieve the units sold target set by Epic.

Mykell

I'd like world peace as well but it ain't gonna happen.

Lokero

He has the mouth of a politician, and, honestly, he's cultivated an image of himself to match.  I hope none of you actually take any of his posturing as sincerity.

Making promises you know you'll never be forced to keep and making yourself sound like a savior at the same time is a win-win.

Anyone who has ever listened to anything he blabs about in the media knows he's always talking BS.

I don't really care what he talks about, as we all know it's a bunch of silly nonsense, but I do hope EGS gains a decent enough foothold to offer everyone a decent alternative.  They really need to step it up on getting new features on the EGS, though.

People will stop moping over exclusives next year, but those missing features are deal-breaking.

Anyway, keep giving me free games, Tim

Palebane

Lol, silly rabbit.

ChildoftheShadows said:

It's always been about getting all the "stores" to lower their strangle hold on developers. Period.

It’s about money. This is just marketing, like watching a beer commercial. Most people understand that you don’t actually get surrounded by half naked women while white water rafting just by drinking Budweiser.

Sandmanjw

I kind of think the only winners here are the people using this as an excuse to pirate the games that are exclusives.

Does that help Epic? The dev's? Steam? Or none of the above?.

Xasapis

Sandmanjw said:

I kind of think the only winners here are the people using this as an excuse to pirate the games that are exclusives.

Does that help Epic? The dev's? Steam? Or none of the above?.

I know of at least one developer/publisher that gained from this controversy, Ubisoft.
By pushing their games to the Epic store and their own, they make sure that they get Epic money, plus, the people who will not touch Epic give them 100% of revenue by going directly to the Uplay store.

Asm0deus

ChildoftheShadows said:

Asm0deus said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Asm0deus said:

Guessing things are not going as well as the Epic Store hoped?

No, just letting the public know there is something steam can do about it. 

Dunno sounds like it not bringing in as much cash as they hoped so they are offering to drop exclusivity in order to decrease steams revenue to something more inline with theirs.

Well of course it sounds that way to you, you are looking for that type of news and desperately want it to happen. Just the number of sales they've received from the currently released exclusives is enough to keep going and that doesn't include the amount of money continually earn from their engine and Fortnite

Grasping at straws I say.

Not really, I have said it before and will say it again I am not a fan of any platform. I prefer no platform tbh so I am not for grasping at or looking for anything...perhaps you should stop grasping at straws yourself?

You do realize that Epic Games has been battling the 30% issue for a number of years now? It wasn't big news until Microsoft tried pushing new rules onto windows game development to use their store. Tim Sweeny wrote a big article about it and how Microsoft was trying to strongarm developers into using their store so they could earn a profit from their work. When they released Fortnite on mobile they deliberately avoided the Play Store, would have done the same with iOS except, well we all know Apple is king at ripping people off. They also didn't put Fortnite on Steam because of it.

No I didn't realize anything at all, like I said I kind of dislike gaming platforms and think it's pretty silly needing to start a "platform" to then start a game when we could all just simply start the game right from our desktops via a shortcut but hey I'm old so...I do think steam does take too much of a cut but then they also seem to provide a big userbase. Now if epic is really trying to fight for the "little guy" against some kind of monopoly and strong arm tactics like MS has been doing well koodos for them. That said age and experience has thought me to be skeptical of white knights riding in on their white horse to save the day without any ulterior motives...

I know you guys think Epic Games is anti-consumer, but you are really really missing the big picture.

Not really, I was just saying an initial impression given the information in the OP, it kind of sounds like they want to do a couple things here.

One, increase their revenue by getting access to the steam userbase

Two, lower steams cut of games for XYZ reason while increasing their own.

Dunno but that doesn't make too much sense from a business standpoint and I am quite skeptical of any "philanthropist" from the gaming sector....tbh I am a little dubious about this epic store since apparently Tencent owns like 40%.

AlBQuirky

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but compare Epic's Store to Steam. What does Steam have that Epic doesn't? Steam just doesn't "resell" games as a middleman. Their software is quite extensive and the features they have built in and users accept as normal is kind of missing from Epic's store. Of course Epic takes a smaller cut. They don't DO as much as Steam.

That being said, like Asm0deus above, I despise ALL platforms like Steam, uPlay, Origin, and GoG's Galaxy. Only ONE of those is optional, and I don't use it. HDD storage is cheap. I have no troubles keeping the games I buy on my own. I don't need help from a storefront.

Epic's CEO is not going to do anything for the consumer. He is in full damage control mode right now.

ChildoftheShadows

AlBQuirky said:

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but compare Epic's Store to Steam. What does Steam have that Epic doesn't? Steam just doesn't "resell" games as a middleman. Their software is quite extensive and the features they have built in and users accept as normal is kind of missing from Epic's store. Of course Epic takes a smaller cut. They don't DO as much as Steam.

That being said, like Asm0deus above, I despise ALL platforms like Steam, uPlay, Origin, and GoG's Galaxy. Only ONE of those is optional, and I don't use it. HDD storage is cheap. I have no troubles keeping the games I buy on my own. I don't need help from a storefront.

Epic's CEO is not going to do anything for the consumer. He is in full damage control mode right now.

What do you do with steam? I downloaded a couple games. I use discord for keeping track of friends, because that's far more logical. The rest is fluff I bet most don't actually care about.

rojoArcueid

No matter what Epic Games do or don't do, i believe that Steam needs to be smart and match the revenue. Steam just doesn't have the ecosystem to justify taking a whole 30% cut, they just have a freaking digital store with servers. They got away with 30% for over a decade because they didn't have competition.

I don't like this situation as much as the next person, but Steam could stop being selfish and greedy, and become more pro consumer.

My opinion.