Borderlands 3 is a 6 months exclusive on Epic Games Store, why not 12 months like the other games? What do you think happened?

[Rodjer]

We all know that Epic Games pays developers for 12 months exclusivity, Satisfactory devs and Phoenix Point already stated this publicly and in the case of Phoenix Point, Epic Games apparently covered the total amount of money that came from crowdfunding. We don't know the exact terms and how much money, but it's clear that Epic Games is paying 12 months of sales estimates on Steam for all these developers to keep them on the Epic Games launcher for 1 year.

Borderlands 3 is arguably the biggest get for Epic, Borderlands 2 did extremely good on PC and according to numbers leaked by Valve in 2018, the game has sold 11 million copies on PC alone. The 6 months exclusivity seems weird to me for a game that can easily sell better than Borderlands 2, what do you guys thing happened?

My theory: Probably Take-Two asked way more money and Epic Games was not in the position to pay 12 months of estimates sales knowing the huge success of Borderlands 2.
I saw this on Twitter and that figure is extremely high, easily covering the development cost of the whole game

 

[Arkanius]

Epic couldn't upfront the whole 12 months.
Borderlands 3, if the reviews are good, will make a bank in Steam and sucker all those sales of the people that bought it on EGS as well.

It's a triple win for 2K:

- Get money from EGS in a pre-release handout
- Get money from pre-orders of people who don't care
- Get money from the Steam users

 

[GhostTrick]

I have two opinion on the matter:
1) Could be because a year is expensive. Epic basically buy X amount of copies. Which means on day one, the publisher sees 0 dollar from the copy sold until they reach the number of copies Epic paid for. A year of Borderlands 3 could be what ? 500k ? 1M? Maybe even 2M ? And I might be undershooting here.
2) Could also be because 2K is worried for the userbase number. It's a multiplayer game. It's great that Epic pays for copies in advance. But if your userbase remains lower than you expected, it hurts the game in the long run.

Epic couldn't upfront the whole 12 months.
Borderlands 3, if the reviews are good, will make a bank in Steam and sucker all those sales of the people that bought it on EGS as well.

It's a triple win for 2K:

- Get money from EGS in a pre-release handout
- Get money from pre-orders of people who don't care
- Get money from the Steam users

Click to shrink...

They don't get money from preorders thought it seems, until they sold X amount of copies.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

They wanted more money than Epic was willing to pay for exclusivity, or perhaps were unwilling in principle to agree to a 12 month deal.

 

[Soj]

Pitchford Entertainment Media & Magic needs to keep the lights on somehow.

 

[johnro]

6 months is still a long period... By the time this appears on Steam the hype will be over/new games will appear.

 

[Alexandros]

One year would probably cost way too much.

 

[unicornKnight]

Nothing happened, publisher decision.

 

[sredgrin]

I'd bet on DLC timing being a factor. They can launch on Steam with some (or even most) of the DLC still incoming wheras in a year they'd likely be wrapping up season pass 1 or even into season pass 2. So it's an awkward transition time.

I don't think any amount of money could've gotten the 1 year.

Pretty much all of the GAAS style games on EGS are Ubisoft games, which are also on Uplay. I'd bet any Gaas style games might be looking at similar outs, either through their own launcher or reduced exclusivity.

 

[Vault]

even Epic wouldn't stump up the cash needed

 

[Deleted member 34385]

Epic is not in a position where they want to make money with their store. they want marketshare. they want users. the only way to get users to move from steam is to have exclusive content, they play along as long as the release of a game on their platform plays even at the end of the day or brings in profit. borderlands will result in 0 profit for epic, but it will bring more users to their store who in return will buy other games. if the deal was for 12 months, epic would make a loss on the this deal and that wont happen

 

[Thrill_house]

Epic is not in a position where they want to make money with their store. they want marketshare. they want users. the only way to get users to move from steam is to have exclusive content, they play along as long as the release of a game on their platform plays even at the end of the day or brings in profit. borderlands will result in 0 profit for epic, but it will bring more users to their store who in return will buy other games. if the deal was for 12 months, epic would make a loss on the this deal and that wont happen

Click to shrink...

It's such a flat out pathetic strategy though. You can't lure customers in with a good store front and positive features..so you just put them in a position where they have no choice if they want a select few games for a year. Just floors me.

Anyway, it was probably too much. Plus as others have said you won't be able to buy the GOAT edition on steam at that point

 

[Kuosi]

Epic hosted a magic party for Randy but it was sort of a letdown in the end.

 

[funky]

Borderlands probably costs more to lock down then random kickstarter games and random eastern European PC games.

 

[Deleted member 34385]

It's such a flat out pathetic strategy though. You can't lure customers in with a good store front and positive features..so you just put them in a position where they have no choice if they want a select few games for a year. Just floors me.

Anyway, it was probably too much. Plus as others have said you won't be able to buy the GOAT edition on steam at that point

Click to shrink...

it is, but it works. Amazon did this with their Prime and Playstation did this with their consoles by selling them at a loss. Epic is giving away their share here to gain more customers. You can read more about the Loss Leader here: What is a Loss Leader Strategy

 

[Datajoy]

Epic might finally be running out of money.

There is light at the end of the tunnel boys.

 

[JayC3]

Please continue discussion on this topic in the announcement thread: https://www.resetera.com/threads/bo...g-september-13th-2019-read-staff-post.109333/

Thanks!