I have a crazy idea for Epic. Instead of paying a fortune for exclusives, leverage the lower 12% cut and have game publishers sell for less (so that the publisher makes the same amount on Steam and Epic)
That only applies to the steam keys valve supplies to developers that have a 0% cut.
Also doing regional pricing would be a massive headache if that were true due to different stores having different recommended price conversions.
The claim specifically mentions Epic and quotes a Valve employee who made statements to the effect of it being prohibited, irrespective of whether a Steam key is involved. Read from page 47 and pay attention to the last paragraphs of page 55.
doing regional pricing would be a massive headache if that were true
Aren’t games regionally priced like forever ? I’ve buying key’s in GB because they are cheaper. Also Doesn’t steam lock you out of your games if you bought US version and travel to the other side of the world? I just vaguely remember people complaining about it.
If the developer chooses to do so themselves then it’s likely ok, but forcing the developer to do so likely violates some sort of law.
I imagine that when Epic instituted it’s lower percentage they hoped that developers would sell exclusively on their platform for higher profits. Instead the developers decided to sell on both platforms and just make a larger percentage on the Epic sales. From the developer perspective it would have been wise in the long run to lower prices so that Epic could grow, but that hurts their short term profits and also stymied Epic’s potential.
If Epic’s store grew to truly rival Steam more developers might have jumped ship, but to do so prematurely would be losing a large portion of the potential customers.
Ultimately Epic had to develop a full Steam clone quickly while all Steam had to do was not suck for the end user.
Well it shouldn’t be at a loss. As the person I responded to pointed out, Epic had a lower fee than Steam so the developer can sell on Epic for less than they would on Steam and make the same amount of money.
Doing so wouldn’t be at a loss, but it wouldn’t make as much profit as possible.
If the developers did choose to sell on Epic for less than it would bolster the Epic store and potentially lead to more people moving to Epic.
If Steam’s fee is 30% and Epic’s is 15% the developer could sell on Steam for $70 and make $49 and they could sell on Epic for $60 to make $51. That’s a 4% increase in profits.
If the Epic store takes off and a large enough user base switches they could maybe increase the Epic price to $62.5 which would result in an additional 4% increase in profits.
Epic’s deal is that they’re offering a lower rate, but the developers aren’t sharing the benefits of that to help Epic grow. If they did the long term profits would likely exceed the short term.
Again, why would the developer care about making Epic grow? It’s the store’s responsibility to offer good service, you don’t see Nintendo trying to help out Target or anything like that now do ya?
Basically what I’m saying is, there is no reason for the developer to try to help a specific storefront, the developer does not work for the storefront, the developers that release games on Epic are just as much a customer of the store as, well, the customer.
If Epic has a shit storefront, the correct answer isn’t to give it a lower price there to “Help Epic grow”, the correct answer is “Well we’ll just focus on selling it on GOG, Humble Bundle, and Steam”
It is unrealistic to expect or even ask for a developer to give Epic special treatment without proper cause “Just to be nice”, not how the business world works.
We see this all the time offline, or rather, we don’t see it… At no point did Nintendo, Sega, or anyone go “Oh no Toys R Us and KMart are facing tough times, we should lower our prices for those stores to help em out.”
Now if it was a developer with actual stake in Epic, maybe they’d do that… but I don’t see Sweeney handing out large amounts of Epic stock to anyone do you?
I have a crazy idea for Epic. Instead of paying a fortune for exclusives, leverage the lower 12% cut and have game publishers sell for less (so that the publisher makes the same amount on Steam and Epic)
And GOG. They used to have several games up there, and then delisted them.
Publishers sets their own prices though.
So why can’t they sell their game for $56 on Epic and $70 on Steam? They’d make about the same money per sale on each?
Are you seriously asking why a company in a capitalist economy would keep more money for themselves?
Valve prohibit that, according to the lawsuit filed by Wolfire Games.
There’s no way that can be legal. I generally support Valve but that is monopolistic as hell.
That only applies to the steam keys valve supplies to developers that have a 0% cut. Also doing regional pricing would be a massive headache if that were true due to different stores having different recommended price conversions.
The claim specifically mentions Epic and quotes a Valve employee who made statements to the effect of it being prohibited, irrespective of whether a Steam key is involved. Read from page 47 and pay attention to the last paragraphs of page 55.
What do you mean by this?
Aren’t games regionally priced like forever ? I’ve buying key’s in GB because they are cheaper. Also Doesn’t steam lock you out of your games if you bought US version and travel to the other side of the world? I just vaguely remember people complaining about it.
No and no.
The time lock lasts 3 months, not forever.
I’m pretty much sure that they had 60$ = 60€ kind of regional prices.
If the developer chooses to do so themselves then it’s likely ok, but forcing the developer to do so likely violates some sort of law.
I imagine that when Epic instituted it’s lower percentage they hoped that developers would sell exclusively on their platform for higher profits. Instead the developers decided to sell on both platforms and just make a larger percentage on the Epic sales. From the developer perspective it would have been wise in the long run to lower prices so that Epic could grow, but that hurts their short term profits and also stymied Epic’s potential.
If Epic’s store grew to truly rival Steam more developers might have jumped ship, but to do so prematurely would be losing a large portion of the potential customers.
Ultimately Epic had to develop a full Steam clone quickly while all Steam had to do was not suck for the end user.
Why would the developer sell at a loss to help Epic out? What’s in it for the developer?
Well it shouldn’t be at a loss. As the person I responded to pointed out, Epic had a lower fee than Steam so the developer can sell on Epic for less than they would on Steam and make the same amount of money.
Doing so wouldn’t be at a loss, but it wouldn’t make as much profit as possible.
If the developers did choose to sell on Epic for less than it would bolster the Epic store and potentially lead to more people moving to Epic.
If Steam’s fee is 30% and Epic’s is 15% the developer could sell on Steam for $70 and make $49 and they could sell on Epic for $60 to make $51. That’s a 4% increase in profits.
If the Epic store takes off and a large enough user base switches they could maybe increase the Epic price to $62.5 which would result in an additional 4% increase in profits.
Epic’s deal is that they’re offering a lower rate, but the developers aren’t sharing the benefits of that to help Epic grow. If they did the long term profits would likely exceed the short term.
Again, why would the developer care about making Epic grow? It’s the store’s responsibility to offer good service, you don’t see Nintendo trying to help out Target or anything like that now do ya?
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or if you really don’t understand. If you don’t understand I’d be happy to elaborate.
Basically what I’m saying is, there is no reason for the developer to try to help a specific storefront, the developer does not work for the storefront, the developers that release games on Epic are just as much a customer of the store as, well, the customer.
If Epic has a shit storefront, the correct answer isn’t to give it a lower price there to “Help Epic grow”, the correct answer is “Well we’ll just focus on selling it on GOG, Humble Bundle, and Steam”
It is unrealistic to expect or even ask for a developer to give Epic special treatment without proper cause “Just to be nice”, not how the business world works.
We see this all the time offline, or rather, we don’t see it… At no point did Nintendo, Sega, or anyone go “Oh no Toys R Us and KMart are facing tough times, we should lower our prices for those stores to help em out.”
Now if it was a developer with actual stake in Epic, maybe they’d do that… but I don’t see Sweeney handing out large amounts of Epic stock to anyone do you?
Slightly edited for clarity
Epic paid $146 to make borderlands exclusive to epic. The game kind of flopped.
Completely untrue. It was a major success and brought record numbers of new customers to the store, which is the main metric pursued by Epic.