Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by matty_makes » Tue, Dec 04, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #161

moate wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite is making hundreds of millions of dollars a month{1}. IDK what "free to play crap" is, but if it can pull in over a billion a year I think most companies would be happy to have it on their ledger. 1- https://www.recode.net/2018/6/26/17502072/fortnite-revenue-g...

It's simple. 99.9% of the users play without paying a dime, and the game has to cater to the "whales" that spend thousands. That's fine when you peddle digital hats, but if they want to open a store, they want paying customers in it don't they? Most actual games they'd want to sell need to be paid for upfront... and I don't see the average Fortnite (or any other free to play abomination) player doing that.

My kids have put more of their money into Fortnite stuff in 1 year than they have paid for in total for any other AAA title game. So have all of their friends.

It isn't whales, its the 10-18 yo disposable money. They get into the stage where physical toys don't hold interest, their birthday and allowance money piles up and social/peer pressure comes into play.

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

#172

Post by criddell » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:12 AM UTC

bliblah wrote: post #94

criddell wrote: post #26

If Apple loses their anti-trust case in court and is forced to open iOS to alternative app stores, does that mean the consoles would be forced to open up their platform as well? It would be nice to have some of these alternative stores on the PS4 and XBox.

Sounds interesting but I don't think so. My reasoning stems from the fact that App stores are pretty much the only way to download and purchase software on iPhones. Meanwhile console games can be bought in the digital marketplace and Physical with physical being much more open option. This pretty much breaks any monopoly that sony could hope to have. Theoretically, if the next generation of consoles aims to follow su…

Sony and Microsoft still have monopoly power on the consoles because no matter where you buy the software, it has to be approved and signed by Sony or Microsoft. They charge a big fee for that and it gets passed on to the consumer.

So I think it depends on how the Supreme Court rules. If Apple has to allow software signed by third parties, then I don't see why that wouldn't translate to the PS4 and XBox.

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

#173

Post by CivBase » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

They've made their argument for why developers should publish there. Now, why should I want to use the Epic Games Store as a launcher?

Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of room for Steam to improve. I want launchers to compete for its users, but all they ever seem to compete for is publishers. For all of Steam's problems, people love it because it offers a huge feature set out of the box.

- Achievements - Friends lists - Voice and text chat - Family sharing - Streaming - Multi-drive support - A decent refund policy - User reviews - An easy-to-use mod workshop - Cloud saves - User-generated tags - Independent curators

The list goes on...

So-called "competitors" never bring even half that feature set to their new platforms. Instead, they force users to switch by making games exclusive to their platform.

A lot of people have talked about publishers having incentives to distribute games on multiple platforms, but history has shown us that they simply don't.

I don't know what the solution is. I guess I just wanted to vent.

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

#174

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:20 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #168

gamblor956 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No bias. If you sell a Unity game, the fee to Epic is 12%. If you sell an Unreal Game, the fee would have been 12% for the store plus 5% for engine royalties for a total of 17%, which would strongly dis-incentivize developers from using Epic's own engine. Epic is simply waiving that 5% engine royalty so that its store is game-engine-agnostic.

You forgot to mention the Unity cut in your sum. Epic is certainly not making the store engine neutral. It costs less to use unreal than unity.

Unity is royalty-free altogether, you pay a subscription for the development tools (think Adobe CC or MS Office365) and get all upgrades during your subscription. You can alternatively not pay a subscription fee at all, and accept certain restrictions on your engine's capabilities, mostly on the use of enterprise-level features an indie developer wouldn't have the resources to use anyway.

So, by eliminating the 5% engine royalty for its own store, Epic is making Unreal also free and thus engine choice is not a deciding factor in whether to use Epic's store.

IOW/tldr: Unity and Unreal cost the same amount of money to use and license if you sell through the Epic store.

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

#175

Post by naikrovek » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #168

gamblor956 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No bias. If you sell a Unity game, the fee to Epic is 12%. If you sell an Unreal Game, the fee would have been 12% for the store plus 5% for engine royalties for a total of 17%, which would strongly dis-incentivize developers from using Epic's own engine. Epic is simply waiving that 5% engine royalty so that its store is game-engine-agnostic.

You forgot to mention the Unity cut in your sum. Epic is certainly not making the store engine neutral. It costs less to use unreal than unity.

It isn't Epic's fault that Unity doesn't have a royalty program.

Unity doesn't get a "cut" of your game profits, anyway. They get $1500/year/developer.

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

#176

Post by nottorp » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 12:25 AM UTC

a13n wrote: post #170

nottorp wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple. 99.9% of the users play without paying a dime, and the game has to cater to the "whales" that spend thousands. That's fine when you peddle digital hats, but if they want to open a store, they want paying customers in it don't they? Most actual games they'd want to sell need to be paid for upfront... and I don't see the average Fortnite (or any other free to play abomination) player doing that.

Yeah, you'd think, but this survey of 1,000 players said 68.8% had spent money on in-game purchases. Maybe they somehow managed to target just the 0.1% of players who spend money (according to you), but it seems highly unlikely that the numbers are that low. https://lendedu.com/blog/finances-of-fortnite/

That's interesting. Personally, I'll still think I'm too poor to afford free games though.

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

#177

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:03 AM UTC

EamonnMR wrote: post #151

georgeecollins wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Steam, but I have no problem using other game stores such as Origin as well. If others stores want to co-exist with Steam, why not? Many people have Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime, Hulu..

On my Roku I can fairly seemlessly switch between Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc. I hate that they don't just expose shows to a common list I can browse through, but whatever. The UX is generally uniform and I can find the things I want no problem. On PC, despite the fact that I'm running a much more powerful machine, they all have a laggy start up because they need to make sure they're up to date, they all have radically d…

That is a good point about friend lists. But really I don't switch game like I switch channels. If I am sitting down to play a game, it is one game. And my clan in World of Warships is generally different people than who I would play League of Legends with.

You can also see that Discord is trying to create a communications service that runs alongside of other DRMs like WoW / LoL / Steam etc. That is fine with me.

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

#178

Post by Eridrus » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #104

Nursie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't really predatory pricing though.

This is structuring your costs, such that you are profitable over the lifetime value of the customer, even if you are not necessarily making a profit right away.

And this has benefits to consumers, who can get into the ecosystem more cheaply, and developers who can sell to a larger audience, because people can get in more cheaply.

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

#179

Post by beerlord » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

hesdeadjim wrote: post #93

notafraudster wrote: post #38

One of the things Steam's 30% cut subsidizes is the generation of unlimited free license keys for developers to do with what they please. So, for instance, if I am an independent developer, I can sell my game on Steam. Say I sell 5,000 copies. I can then turn around and generate 25,000 keys gratis, and sell those on my website (paying maybe a 5-8% fee to my payment processor, but otherwise taking everything). Those k…

I've heard rumors from people I trust that they are going to crack down even further on keys, possibly to the point of making it so you can't resell elsewhere.

If Valve are going to drop their commissions to compete with Epic, they will pull in third-party key sales. Those third-party stores and bundles will die off.

Valve really needed a kick in the pants though. Their store is thoroughly out of date. Crowdfunding new games and sales bundles should have been a part of their offering. They are too worried about being a monopoly, and not focused enough on innovating their offering. The quality of games on the platform needs to be dramatically stepped up, and all of the porn/hentai games kicked out to avoid national censorship.

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

#180

Post by laythea » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #166

laythea wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...if you’re using Unreal Engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games store, out of Epic’s 12%." So there is a bias in the Epic store towards Unreal titles then, contrary to what I just read.

No bias. If you sell a Unity game, the fee to Epic is 12%. If you sell an Unreal Game, the fee would have been 12% for the store plus 5% for engine royalties for a total of 17%, which would strongly dis-incentivize developers from using Epic's own engine. Epic is simply waiving that 5% engine royalty so that its store is game-engine-agnostic.

This does not detract from the fact that it is offering an unreal developer better terms than a unity dev.