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Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

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Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#101

Post by freehunter »

kgwxd wrote: post #33

I'd be more excited for this much needed competition if it weren't a company that survives by taking advantage of children's naivety of money and natural impulses to sell virtual outfits and animations at sickening prices. App store cuts are ridiculously high, but at least they're not taking candy directly from babies.

I'm not a fan of Fortnite but that is extremely disingenuous. In your interpretation, parents are completely absolved from responsibility and apparently children have free access to credit cards that can't legally even be issued to them.

Want to know the responsible answer to "mommy can I buy a Fortnite skin"? It's "no". Simple as that. Same as it was when the question was "dad can I buy this Harry Potter poster" or "mom can I get this GI Joe" or "grandma can I buy a stick to roll my hoop with" or anything marketed to kids over the past literally forever.

Don't want your kids spending money on video games? Don't give them your credit card number. Don't blame Epic for making a fun and free-to-play video game that kids enjoy. The people actually spending the money aren't kids being taken advantage of, they're actual consenting adults. Kids don't have credit cards so they cannot make digital purchases.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#102

Post by tialaramex »

nottorp wrote: post #76
a13n wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to attract consumers? Isn't Fortnite already the most popular game in the world? From what I can find, latest report of Steam MAU is 90 million people, and latest report of Fortnite MAU is 75 million. They already have the consumers.

But Fortnite is free to play crap, so like 0.1% of those 75 million actually paid something?

Valve got the initial userbase for Steam via, among other things, giving away "free to play crap" as well as their award-winning Portal. It was several years before my Steam account had a single purchase on it, Valve correctly guessed that users who never buy anything at all help generate those enormous userbase numbers and don't cost that much to service so it's fine.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#103

Post by jsmith45 »

mtgx wrote: post #74
vtesucks wrote: post #28

One major upside for publishers in steam is DRM which epic won't offer.

Why? Steam DRM gets cracked all the time.

Right. Back in the day when CS:Source was still one of the main games played on steam, whenever they released a new single player game, the limiting factor for how long until it was on the pirate forums was how long it took to write up the forum post. The Steam DRM itself was generally cracked at all times.

I've not kept track, but I'd not be shocked if this was pretty much still the case. It would certainly explain why so many games still have another layer of DRM when sold on steam.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#104

Post by freehunter »

Nursie wrote: post #98
Eridrus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that console hardware is usually sold below cost to get people into the ecosystem and make that back as people buy games. So forcing console makers to allow other stores would probably have a much more dramatic impact on the console market. And while IANAL, it seems a bit of a stretch to apply anti-trust law here.

I'm not sure I see why the level of hardware profitability is at issue? It's use of platform power to lock in profit and exclusivty that appears to be at issue.

Yeah if anything that's even worse. Dropping the price of your product to unsustainable levels to gain a competitive advantage is called "predatory pricing" and is a valid cause for anti-trust suits.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#105

Post by rlonstein »

bliblah wrote: post #91
EamonnMR wrote: post #48

I wish Valve had pushed harder to compete with Origin, but this looks like the end of its complete dominance. Once EA demonstrated that anybody could hack together a launcher, it's become a free for all. As a consumer it's been a worse and worse experience since increasingly small companies felt the need to replace steam with technically inferior solutions. But this is different-now we get a competitor which is willi…

I don't think it will be a major blow. Ubisoft followed suit and just sells games on Steam but tacks on their awful DRM on top of steam. Origin is a joke in terms of functionality and ease of use. The only advantage it has is the library of games if you so happen to like EA games, which has been very mixed in the last few years to say the least. I only own two games from there and would rather just buy a used PS4 cop…

> I was shocked that Steam sells games that quite > literally do not work on anything more modern than XP!

Interesting since they have EOLed the client on pre-Win7 systems. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1558-AFC...

This annoys me because I had Skyrim[1] in Wine on Linux for the occasional run but after the update I'm faced with working out what broke as I can't back out.

.

.

[1] Purchased as a real physical DVD. Except the installer requires the use of the Steam client even for the base game.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#106

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

kgwxd wrote: post #33

I'd be more excited for this much needed competition if it weren't a company that survives by taking advantage of children's naivety of money and natural impulses to sell virtual outfits and animations at sickening prices. App store cuts are ridiculously high, but at least they're not taking candy directly from babies.

Virtual clothes to look cool are not really any different from real life clothes. I mean, some dads refuse to let their daughters buy makeup, I guess that's kind of the same thing.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#107

Post by DuskStar »

Reedx wrote: post #63
notafraudster wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is great news for indies who Steam seems to be ignoring[1]" Your citation suggests that in this context, ignoring means "potentially offering them fewer page referrals from advertising slots, relying on them to generate organic traffic". I mention this, because the interview with Tim Sweeney posted in response to your comment says: "Generally, we want to enable a more direct relationship between developers and…

> ... margin wasn't the problem because 30% of nothing is nothing, and his issue is no one discovering his games. Doesn't that make the 30% all the more problematic? If you have to bring eyes to your Steam page anyway, you might as well just sell direct. From Grey Alien, "In the past I have felt positive about Steam, but these discovery changes and the recent revenue share changes that are only relevant to hugely suc…

I can say with confidence that I am much more willing to drop $5 on a game via Steam than . Aside from the obvious "is this a scam" aspects, Steam means that I will have the game even when the dev goes under in 5 years, that my save states will be backed up, and that at least some of the reviews might not be faked.

That 30% might be painful, but at the same time Steam provides a LOT of utility to the buyer.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#108

Post by rhexs »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #106
kgwxd wrote: post #33

I'd be more excited for this much needed competition if it weren't a company that survives by taking advantage of children's naivety of money and natural impulses to sell virtual outfits and animations at sickening prices. App store cuts are ridiculously high, but at least they're not taking candy directly from babies.

Virtual clothes to look cool are not really any different from real life clothes. I mean, some dads refuse to let their daughters buy makeup, I guess that's kind of the same thing.

What? One is bits and bytes, once is a REAL GOOD you can wear, sell, recycle, use, change, trade etc.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#109

Post by ashelmire »

This is sort of an interesting case study. Markets can be inelastic and see this sort of unspoken price collaboration... until a major player jumps in like this and undercuts all them. I think we’ll start seeing a lot more competition on revenue share thanks to this.

Re: Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue

#110

Post by a13n »

At first glance, I thought Steam was in big trouble. Last MAU numbers I could find were 90m for Steam and 75m for Fortnite.

A game store is a marketplace, in startup terminology. Epic already has a lot of the consumer side, and 60% lower fees is a huge incentive for the developer side.

But UX-wise, so many games are built on top of Steam. In Rocket League, you get logged in with your Steam account. You invite friends to party via Steam.

And how would migrating work? Would Epic let me launch the game because I already own it in Steam? Or would I have to re-purchase? (No way people would do that)

If I'm playing on Epic, and my friend is on Steam, would we be able to party?

This introduces a ton of complexity, and while certainly troubling for Steam in the long run (once new games come out), I think their moat is still very strong.

Also 40% of Epic Games is owned by Tencent, so this would mean China's market share of the world's gamer market growing, for better or for worse (depending on your political opinions).

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