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

#231

Post by namlem » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #206

CivBase wrote: post #173

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…

> - 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 Do people really care about this stuff? I've started holding my nose and grudgingly using Steam, and really all I want is a way to buy a game and get it on my hard drive. I don't need a…

I use those features all the time. A lot of people do.

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

#232

Post by kgwxd » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

austhrow743 wrote: post #201

kgwxd wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popular YouTuber has a skin that's no longer available. Epic brings it back for an arbitrary limited time. It cost more v-bucks than could realistically be earned in-game. Every kid wants it.

Is your beef with them purely that they sell things that kids want?

It's that they sell something that cost relatively noting to make or distribute, put an imaginary wall around it and charge insane access fees. The only value provided is entirely in the targeted mind, the minds of children; the uneducated; the impulsive.

Maybe it irks me so much because it represents the bottom of capitalism barrel and it's wildly successful.

I'm mad at Epic for making the trap, but I'm equally as aggravated at people for falling into the trap, even though it's clearly marked with giant neon lights.

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

#233

Post by ArchTypical » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 12:33 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #192

tapoxi wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we sure that's true? Fortnite is the most popular game in the world right now.

Steam[1] still has more peak concurrent users than Fortnite at 14 million if you add the games up, while Fortnite is over 8 million[2]. Fortnite does have a huge install base, but I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it. For new users that don't have steam, there might be an inventive to use the Epic games launcher, especially if t…

> I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it

125 million fortnite installs - https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-size-statistics-pla...

70+ million steam installs - https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260

Not saying what's right and what's wrong but I heard these kind of numbers reported after the announcement. I see a lot of different numbers being thrown around and I'm not sure what to believe anymore.

Steamcharts consistently surprises me at how few people play the popular games I like, so I'm beginning to think Steam isn't as big.

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

#234

Post by Felz » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 12:37 AM UTC

hardwaresofton wrote: post #228

Felz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large scale Have you ever heard of TF2?

I feel like they just wandered into a crazy profitable business model and didn't know what to do? Could you be more specific -- I never played TF2 for very long, and I know hats were basically a huge thing, but from what I understand they allowed people to make hats right? Did they like take all the profit from community made hats or something? This must just be a controversy I didn't see because I don't play TF2

They basically turned the game into a testbed for extremely exploitative practices. It's been a while since I walked away in disgust, but one example I remember is the crates system.

Essentially, they added "item drops" called crates. These crates do absolutely nothing unless you spend $2.50 to buy a key to open them with. It's basically an extremely insulting lootbox model.

Aside from turning the game into a hat simulator, they also introduced loads of game-breaking straight upgrade weapons for you to grind for, and continually piled them on over the years, often just taking community-supplied models and slapping stats on them. At some point they even tried to add full sets of expensive cosmetic items that would give you straight stat bonuses when worn, which even they had to back down from.

I've never seen more aggressive monetization while ruining the base product than I saw Valve apply to TF2, hence my surprise at your impression that Valve wasn't capable of money grubbing. In the case of TF2, they were somehow actually worse than Activision-Blizzard.

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

#235

Post by hardwaresofton » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 1:25 AM UTC

Felz wrote: post #234

hardwaresofton wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like they just wandered into a crazy profitable business model and didn't know what to do? Could you be more specific -- I never played TF2 for very long, and I know hats were basically a huge thing, but from what I understand they allowed people to make hats right? Did they like take all the profit from community made hats or something? This must just be a controversy I didn't see because I don't play TF2

They basically turned the game into a testbed for extremely exploitative practices. It's been a while since I walked away in disgust, but one example I remember is the crates system. Essentially, they added "item drops" called crates. These crates do absolutely nothing unless you spend $2.50 to buy a key to open them with. It's basically an extremely insulting lootbox model. Aside from turning the game into a hat sim…

Hahha that's exactly like Counter Strike:Global Offensive (which I do play). It's definitely some dark UX/a manipulative practice, but well within their rights to do, as long as the stuff that comes out doesn't actually affect gameplay.

Breaking the games balance with pay/gamble-to-win stuff is pretty shitty IMO though, yikes.

Now that I think about it, Counter Strike: Source didn't have any of the crate nonsense or skins... Yeah they probably learned that from TF2.

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

#236

Post by freehunter » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #209

freehunter wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Don't blame Epic for making a fun and free-to-play video game that kids enjoy. You had me up until this point. No one can deny the extreme amounts of psychology (read: manipulation) used in children's marketing. (Or any marketing...)

Marketing can only go so far. There are plenty of things (video games included) marketed towards kids with big budgets that the children are completely ambivalent about. If they didn't enjoy Minecraft or Roblox or Fortnite or Pokemon or JUUL or McDonald's Happy Meals or light-up sneakers, they'd join the ranks of EZ Squirt ketchup, ET for Atari, New Coke, or the Virtual Boy.

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

#237

Post by ksec » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #34

Official announcement - https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/announcing-the-epic-... "Developers receive 88% of revenue. There are no tiers or thresholds. Epic takes 12%. And 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%." "From Epic’s 12% store fee, we’ll have a profitable business we’ll grow and reinvest in for years to come!" This is gr…

This is actually a genius move. Everyone is so concerned about the 12% and its rivalry between Steam, and not see this from an Unreal Engine perspective. Instead of Getting 5% from the Game sold as EPIC are currently used to now, they are now getting 12% with an additional Gaming App Store. That is an 240% increase in revenue with very little additional offering.

Unfortunately I think Unity May see this as a threat, Now what if Unity decide to make an App Store for 7% revenue, which should effectively be a non profit model after you take away the 3% Credit Card charges and CDN cost.

Anyway both would be good as we continue to push forward the Middleware Gaming Engine.

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

#238

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #197

gamblor956 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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% en…

> You can alternatively not pay a subscription fee at all, and accept certain restrictions on your engine's capabilities Just fyi: that is not how the unity license works. Unity's license is if your company makes >= $100k a year you're required to buy the $400 per seat license. If your company makes >= $200k year you're required to by the $1500 per seat license. Period. So for example if you're employee of Google and…

You're not required to buy the $1500 license unless your company has already made $200k. If your first game goes bonkers and sells $1 million on the free version, you do not have to pay $1500 for the Plus version unless you make DLC or a new game after your bonanza. The license is prospective, not retrospective.

Other than that, you've just restated what I already said. Unity provides the tools on subscription, but does not charge a royalty anymore.

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

#239

Post by kbenson » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:14 PM UTC

ArchTypical wrote: post #233

kbenson wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam[1] still has more peak concurrent users than Fortnite at 14 million if you add the games up, while Fortnite is over 8 million[2]. Fortnite does have a huge install base, but I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it. For new users that don't have steam, there might be an inventive to use the Epic games launcher, especially if t…

> I imagine most of them that need a store (i.e. not consoles, so basically PCs) already have Steam, and at least one game in it 125 million fortnite installs - https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-size-statistics-pla... 70+ million steam installs - https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260 Not saying what's right and what's wrong but I heard these kind of numbers reported after the announcement. I see a lot…

Here's a more recent source[1] (unfortunately poorly sourced, but it does have a timestamp for each item). It shows 200 million installs (11/11), but 74.2 million iOS installs (11/7), 11.5 million downloads on the switch (10/30).

Android usage is complex, because it's still only available officially to Samsung Galaxy devices, but the amount of players looks like it might be similar to iOS (there are usage numbers from the link, but for different times).

So, just from the total installs number and the somewhat recent iOS and Nintendo Switch numbers, we can put the maximum number of PC installs at around 114 million, before we account for Xbox (released mid 2017), PS4 (released mid-2017) and Android (Samsung Galaxy only but I think it may well be in the tens of millions anyway, especially since there are tutorials on how to get it on other devices).

I think that will leave us well within the territory where Steam and Fortnite have a largely overlapping PC user base.

> Steamcharts consistently surprises me at how few people play the popular games I like, so I'm beginning to think Steam isn't as big.

I think most people just don't game on PC as much anymore. Most PC games are available for consoles now too, and it's much cheaper to buy a new console every few years than to keep a gaming PC updated. My brother bought a keyboard and mouse for his PS4, and played Overwatch with that. Probably just as good an experience as the PC version for much cheaper total platform cost over time.

1: https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/fortnite-facts-and-s...