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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

#181

Post by beerlord »

billfruit wrote: post #55

I keep repeating this: two things Steam does right are effortless no-questions-asked refunds, localized prices in many regions of the world, so that people in poorer countries pay affordable prices. I do think that Steam is only going to grow bigger, because most of the growth in game sales are going to come from China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Africa, Mexico, Brazil etc than US and Europe. But most othe…

The question will be: how will developers respond to this lower commission? Will it result in cheaper games for the end user?

Personally I'm being conservative, that the Epic Store will lack of a lot of features upfront and need a higher advertising budget, and some additional support costs if I have to self-administer cloud saves (eg. via AWS) if Epic don't have that feature yet.

So I've budgeted for about 10% lower sales, 50% increased advertising spend, about $10k extra development costs. I come out slightly less profitable than Steam, but I calculate that the risks of launching on Epic are much lower, since there's a chance that the game can just flop and die immediately on Steam on launch, whereas at least on Epic I have the boost from being selected. Plus, the potential upside on Epic is much higher.

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

#182

Post by beerlord »

EamonnMR wrote: post #148
guitarbill wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this will be a major blow to steam we'll see. i'm in no hurry to rush out and buy anything that isn't on Steam. all these articles talk about the cut Epic will take, but as a customer, I couldn't care less. what i do care about is e.g. Steam's excellent return policy. maybe i'm just getting old and am not that interested in games, but i'm happy to pass up games if they aren't on Steam. i'd venture a guess that Stea…

The popularity of Fortnite means that there's already a huge install base on PC. As a customer I don't like to see total vertical integration of platform and engine tech-I don't want to see Unreal go the way of Source, and I don't want to see Unity squeezed out.

Don't forget that Epic has built-in 5% affiliate commissions, which they will cover for the first 24 months.

This whole thing will get huge advertising and popular support, developers will just need to take advantage of it.

I'm sure there will be some great exclusive games on there too.

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

#183

Post by Bekwnn »

kgwxd wrote: post #132
bliblah wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting take, most people I know find that Fortnite is a much better alternative than let's say 90% of apps that are aimed at children that are literal gambling simulators. In Fortnite you get what you pay for, no BS. No pay-to-win power ups, just cosmetic items that are fairly high quality and often referencing the hottest memes at the moment. Even the seasonal battlepass can be quite fair with rewards…

Getting punched in the face is better than getting stabbed in the stomach.

I wouldn't equate purchasable cosmetics where you direct purchase the item you want with no RNG to being assaulted in either of those ways.

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

#184

Post by gamblor956 »

laythea wrote: post #180
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.

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

No, they are not. The Epic store takes 12% whatever engine you use. They are simply waiving the 5% unreal engine royalty to unreal developers so they don't pay more than 12%.

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

#185

Post by EamonnMR »

georgeecollins wrote: post #177
EamonnMR wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm totally the opposite-I have friends that I play all of my MP with and we tend to have a stable of games (current lineup includes Pubg, WoWS, StarCraft, Far Cry 5) split across launchers.

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

#186

Post by throwaway2048 »

Profan wrote: post #113
preommr wrote: post #27

Well this makes me feel awkward as a Unity dev. I saw that they'll allow unity based games on their new store but I wonder if that's just for the short term. Kind of makes me wonder if I should've chosen Unreal.

Considering Tim Sweeney's pretty strong stance against walling in marketplaces too hard, I think it's.. relatively safe at least.

They have indicated that the epic store will have third party exclusives, so I wouldn't be too sure about that.

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

#187

Post by tialaramex »

nottorp wrote: post #160
tialaramex wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmm, wasn't it Half Life 2 (paid for) and only then their award-winning Portal (also paid for)? There were no or very few free to play abominations back then.

Portal was free on Steam. That was the incentive. Heard about this cool game but not sure you can justify full price for what sounds like a weird tech demo? Install Steam and it's free (for a limited time). Most people I know who play some games but not many installed Steam precisely to try Portal for free. Valve has doubtless made back the investment many times over, even if you ignore the fact that Portal was already wildly successful and so didn't need to earn Valve one single extra penny.

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

#188

Post by vtesucks »

jsmith45 wrote: post #103
mtgx wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was completely unaware. Thank you.

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

#189

Post by billfruit »

mywittyname wrote: post #144
billfruit wrote: post #55

I keep repeating this: two things Steam does right are effortless no-questions-asked refunds, localized prices in many regions of the world, so that people in poorer countries pay affordable prices. I do think that Steam is only going to grow bigger, because most of the growth in game sales are going to come from China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Africa, Mexico, Brazil etc than US and Europe. But most othe…

GoG does both of these, and have done so for much longer than Steam.

It doesn't not to do either of them as wholeheartedly as steam: GOG refunds are for technical issues not no-questions-asked. Similarly in my region Steam prices are lower than GOG prices. Moreover like GOG, steam also supports DRM free games(if the developer wants a game to be DRM free).

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

#190

Post by beerlord »

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…

Those other stores only made sense because they offered a lower commission than Steam.

If you already have the lower commission, you don't need the ability to print keys.

Instead of going through a bundle, which yielded about 50c per copy then sunk your later sales since tens of thousands of keys ended up on G2A etc, just sell your game for 95% off - same result (mass appeal, even to people who are not really interested in your game), doesn't impact your future sales, and probably yields more revenue.

However, the one gap I can see is from Kickstarters - backers need some method to access the game on Epic Store.

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