Borderlands 3 is coming to the Epic Games Store (Exclusivity Unknown) [Read Staff Post]

[voOsh]

I have, and I still don't understand why it's a big deal if a game goes exclusive to another launcher on your computer, your not paying for another launcher and it takes at most maybe 5 mins to download? The irrational thinking is what's getting me cause it really just doesn't matter, you want to play the game bad enough you will get it on whatever store it's on.

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It's so much more than just another launcher. I've been a Steam user for 15 years. I have that many years worth of friends on my list. I use Big Picture. I use cloud saves. I have a library of hundreds of screenshots. I use the wishlist. I use the Steam Workshop for countless games.

I get none of these things from EGS. Steam is just a better platform and it's not close. And I have no problem if Epic wants to sell games but the exclusivity deals are wrong and go against the culture of PC gaming. I may get ridiculed for caring about PC gaming but it means something to me and Epic threatens it.

 

[CurseVox]

This sucks, but I'm not caving. Oh well. :(

 

[Potterson]

This really looks weird.

Like, no PS4 logo? Any console logo? Just EGS? Just looks weird.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

I have, and I still don't understand why it's a big deal if a game goes exclusive to another launcher on your computer, your not paying for another launcher and it takes at most maybe 5 mins to download? The irrational thinking is what's getting me cause it really just doesn't matter, you want to play the game bad enough you will get it on whatever store it's on.

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Well, for some it's the launcher, for others, it's something else.

There's heaps of reasons why people decide not to use EGS. Mine is simply because their regional pricing isnt good enough, and that 30% transaction fee for Steam has helped me getting cheaper games thanks to GMG.

Some of you have no idea how tough it is having games being sold at 200++ myr.

Now when games that are hosted on Epic's client are as affordable as those hosted on the Steam client? I'll be on it.

 

[Hektor]

Y'all want to like games want to take or farther then games. I still really don't understand why you would much rather look out for another companies pocket, they are making MILLIONS anyway so really it's just kinda weird to see this stance over a video game.

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People are looking out for their own pockets hun, not valves.
Just so happens that our pockets align.

 

[Ge0force]

Y'all want to like games want to take or farther then games. I still really don't understand why you would much rather look out for another companies pocket, they are making MILLIONS anyway so really it's just kinda weird to see this stance over a video game.

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I'm not looking out for another companies pocket. I'm not a Steam fanboy, I own loads of games on other storefronts as well and I actually prefer GoG because of their anti-DRM stance.

I think my previous post was very clear: I want storefronts to compete by offering more value for consumers, not by keeping the most popular games away from competing storefronts. It's that simple.

I also strongly dislike several other things about Epic's strategy, like boycotting 3rd party keystores and making user reviews opt-in for the developers.

 

[RoninChaos]

It can be on both EGS and Steam .. doesn't say anywhere that it's exclusive.

Not sure why people are getting so uppity about this.

edit: also that tweet has been deleted.

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You know damn well why people are being "uppity" about it. Stop that. It just so happens people have an issue with how epic runs their store and how it doesn't match steam's feature set. It's coasting on exclusivity.

The PC is supposed to be the best open platform out there and all these launchers and stores are basically splintering the PC into console territory when that's not how gaming on the PC is supposed to be. A HUGE title like borderlands going straight to epic's store and not steam makes the dividing line bigger. If pc gamers wanted to deal with console-wars style storefront bullshit they'd just buy consoles. So stop that. You know why people are upset if this is exclusive to the Epic store.

 

[Deleted member 437]

So uh how do these deals work

Is epic really throwing insane amounts of money at companies? Seems like everyone is getting paid huge but wont companies like 2k be extremely expensive

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I think these companies are in it for the long game perhaps.

If Epic store fails, Steam will become the defacto again.

If that happens, they go back to 70/30 cut.

These companies have an interest in seeing Epic succeed, to grow the userbase on that platform to get more money, and hopefully force Valve into a situation where they MUST increase share to 88/12 or risk Epic becoming the PC platform standard.

I think right now Valve is on a wait and see approach. If Valve goes to 88/12, there is NO going back. That is a SIGNIFICANT cut to their revenue.

 

[Tovarisc]

These companies have an interest in seeing Epic succeed, to grow the userbase on that platform to get more money, and hopefully force Valve into a situation where they MUST increase share to 88/12 or risk Epic becoming the PC platform standard.

I think right now Valve is on a wait and see approach. If Valve goes to 88/12, there is NO going back. That is a SIGNIFICANT cut to their revenue.

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Valve going to that model would be so bad PC gaming.

Key stores like GMG would die over night, Valve would be forced to operate store at loss in certain regions or go full Epic by dropping support for whole regions of the world, cut their R&D for HW and SW etc.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

I have, and I still don't understand why it's a big deal if a game goes exclusive to another launcher on your computer, your not paying for another launcher and it takes at most maybe 5 mins to download? The irrational thinking is what's getting me cause it really just doesn't matter, you want to play the game bad enough you will get it on whatever store it's on.

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I am paying though. I never pay full price for PC games because there's so many key sites to buy from, but with Epic I have no other choice than Epic store for full price.

 

[Lothars]

You're thinking pretty narrowly here. It might rub people in communities like this the wrong way but that isn't the majority of consumers. Your average consumer isn't going to care about what launcher you get a thing at.

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I think they are especially when the client isn't very good, I bet you the number is way higher than your thinking.

 

[Manwell]

I think these companies are in it for the long game perhaps.

If Epic store fails, Steam will become the defacto again.

If that happens, they go back to 70/30 cut.

These companies have an interest in seeing Epic succeed, to grow the userbase on that platform to get more money, and hopefully force Valve into a situation where they MUST increase share to 88/12 or risk Epic becoming the PC platform standard.

I think right now Valve is on a wait and see approach. If Valve goes to 88/12, there is NO going back. That is a SIGNIFICANT cut to their revenue.

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If Valve switched to 88/12 right now I guarantee you it would change absolutely nothing. Epic would still poach games by offering a big chunk of money and publishers would happily accept.

 

[Deleted member 437]

Valve going to that model would be so bad PC gaming.

Key stores like GMG would die over night, Valve would be forced to operate store at loss in certain regions or go full Epic by dropping support for whole regions of the world, cut their R&D for HW and SW etc.

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Yeah, most devs/pubs don't care about that. At least I don't think they do.

Like, and extra 18% for every sale? That is huge.

 

[Komo]

If Valve switched to 88/12 right now I guarantee you it would change absolutely nothing. Epic would still poach games by offering a big chunk of money and publishers would happily accept.

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It literally wouldn't effect Valve the slightest. They might actually slow down on any R&D they do.

 

[Lant_War]

Lol. Flash sales are as anti-consumer as it gets. It's meant to pressure you into buying games you don't even want.

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What

 

[Swenhir]

Oh my, look at the date.

I'll give Pitchford that, that's perhaps the ballsiest april's fool in recent memory if that's what this is.

If it does release on EGS, I hope for their sake it won't be an exclusive because they will be hell to pay.

 

[eonden]

It literally wouldn't effect Valve the slightest. They might actually slow down on any R&D they do.

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Yeah, most devs/pubs don't care about that. At least I don't think they do.

Like, and extra 18% for every sale? That is huge.

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It would kill / slow down PC-sales reinsertion into developing countries, as the added costs (or heck, even outright disapearance) of payment methods would make it much harder to buy games there. Piracy would increase again easily.

You guys seem to forget that piracy is still quite predominant outside of the western world (heck even in the western world it can be easy to fall back to it).

It would also kill most of the guaranteed resellers, basically destroying all the price competition inside the Steam ecosystem, aka the main competition from Steam.

 

[Deleted member 401]

What

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out

 

[Deleted member 11626]

Lol. Flash sales are as anti-consumer as it gets. It's meant to pressure you into buying games you don't even want.

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Whew

 

[Tovarisc]

Yeah, most devs/pubs don't care about that. At least I don't think they do.

Like, and extra 18% for every sale? That is huge.

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I mean yeah, I doubt many of them give single fuck at the end.

Now with Epic they take in (tens of) millions just for 1 year exclusivity deal and then 88% for every actual sale from 60€ games.

Which goes to what others have pointed out. Even if Valve cut back to 12% and dealt major blow to head of PC gaming market, but didn't start writing multi million sign up checks then those publishers would still flock to Epic for that free cash.

 

[Falchion]

I doubt it'll be exclusive.

 

[Swenhir]

By the way, for anyone who wants to ask what the deal with the hostility toward Epic is, this guy offers a pretty good summary. It gets really good from part 2.

 

[Davilmar]

I think we need to have further discussion on the continued tension between consumers and the developers/corporations that produce the games we consume through our dollars. I have always opposed the entire idea of using a third-party storefront to play my game instead of just playing it outright, but I understood how much it was convenient for gamers and better for up and coming developers. This approach with Epic is bad for gamers, and Valve has to weight competing against what concessions would mean for the freedom of consumers. Epic has consistently taken awful approaches regarding pricing, storefront features, and transparency on privacy, reviews, etc. At the end of the day, I am less sympathetic toward developers than my right as a gamer and consumer.

 

[voOsh]

Which goes to what others have pointed out. Even if Valve cut back to 12% and dealt major blow to head of PC gaming market, but didn't start writing multi million sign up checks then those publishers would still flock to Epic for that free cash.

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Yeah exactly. This is why I doubt Valve will fight Epic head on with 88/12 and moneyhatting. If they do that it becomes a race to the bottom and mutually-assured destruction of both companies. I think Valve may lower their cut to the 20-25% range though.

 

[Swenhir]

Yeah exactly. This is why I doubt Valve will fight Epic head on with 88/12 and moneyhatting. If they do that it becomes a race to the bottom and mutually-assured destruction of both companies. I think Valve may lower their cut to the 20-25% range though.

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They already have though, years ago with key sellers and recently with sales above a threshold that I've honestly forgotten. I don't know, I'm not too pleased with Valve or anyone else lowering their cut and possibly making their presence precarious because of this bullshit. If it happens, I want it to be for the right reasons and not a knee-jerk reaction to a bad actor that is deliberately trying to starve and destabilize the ecosystem.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Oh my, look at the date.

I'll give Pitchford that, that's perhaps the ballsiest april's fool in recent memory if that's what this is.

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If this was an April fools joke it'd be the assumption it was only meant to troll the hardcore internet gaming crowd as I doubt others would have noticed

 

[SecondNature]

Yes. They pay devs/publishers a nice sum up front, and they guarantee a minimum revenue. So if a game doesn't get it's projected sales on EGS, Epic pays for the rest.

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Is this what is known as fuck money? All of this is due to Fortnite right

 

[Kaeden]

By the way, for anyone who wants to ask what the deal with the hostility toward Epic is, this guy offers a pretty good summary. It gets really good from part 2.

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It's really, really weird how many separate tweets refer to Valve as volvo. I know it's an auto correct issue (or is it a joke I'm not aware of?), but it happened a LOT in his flurry of tweets. Good write up though by him.

 

[Tovarisc]

Is this what is known as fuck money? All of this is due to Fortnite right

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Fortnite and possibly some Tencent cash is bank rolling EGS, yes.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

It's really, really weird how many separate tweets refer to Valve as volvo. I know it's an auto correct issue (or is it a joke I'm not aware of?), but it happened a LOT in his flurry of tweets. Good write up though by him.

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People calling Valve by Volvo is a pretty common joke. Most likely intentional.

 

[arts&crafts]

It's really, really weird how many separate tweets refer to Valve as volvo. I know it's an auto correct issue (or is it a joke I'm not aware of?), but it happened a LOT in his flurry of tweets. Good write up though by him.

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Its an inside joke I wasnt a part of :(
But it probably stems from a few autocorrects back in the day.

 

[Kaeden]

People calling Valve by Volvo is a pretty common joke. Most likely intentional.

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LOL. Yeah just did a quick google search and see people were doing it back in 2013.... yikes, kinda missed that one.

 

[low-G]

On one hand, Epic should waste their money buying up garbage like Borderlands 3.
On the other hand, Gearbox getting any money is bad.

 

[Youngfossil]

You know damn well why people are being "uppity" about it. Stop that. It just so happens people have an issue with how epic runs their store and how it doesn't match steam's feature set. It's coasting on exclusivity.

The PC is supposed to be the best open platform out there and all these launchers and stores are basically splintering the PC into console territory when that's not how gaming on the PC is supposed to be. A HUGE title like borderlands going straight to epic's store and not steam makes the dividing line bigger. If pc gamers wanted to deal with console-wars style storefront bullshit they'd just buy consoles. So stop that. You know why people are upset if this is exclusive to the Epic store.

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Difference is though, you dont have to buy another console, it's just a download. Not really comparable. Being open is a double edge sword.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

This really looks weird.

Like, no PS4 logo? Any console logo? Just EGS? Just looks weird.

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It's the way to do it going forward. If plans change and it don't show up a storefront, no one can go back to that reveal and say "way to take it off of StoreX for exclusivity money." For now at least EGS is confirmed so if it change and become Steam only, we'll know what's going on.

Also not showing store logos is a good way to let the bidding begin. "Hey we didn't prevent it from being on that other store, it was never advertised to go to that store."

 

[Swenhir]

It's really, really weird how many separate tweets refer to Valve as volvo. I know it's an auto correct issue (or is it a joke I'm not aware of?), but it happened a LOT in his flurry of tweets. Good write up though by him.

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It's actually a joke refering to a spat the community had with Valve over a dota 2 event they wouldn't repeat despite the community asking them. The volvo meme sprang from there but I can't remember how.

 

[SteveWinwood]

Yeah exactly. This is why I doubt Valve will fight Epic head on with 88/12 and moneyhatting. If they do that it becomes a race to the bottom and mutually-assured destruction of both companies. I think Valve may lower their cut to the 20-25% range though.

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both epic and valve are smart enough to pull out of a nose dive in a MAD situation

but its not about the two multi billion dollar companies at that point

gog, itchio, discord any and all of those would be the first casualties long before epic or valve even felt anything

which again is the overall point of most people here, theyre not even necessarily pro valve, they just want all the games to come out everywhere and then the consumer can choose what store they want to buy it from

if you want to buy something on gog or even epic games store more power to you but dont celebrate limiting other peoples choices and saying its a good thing. discord store did exclusive deals a while ago, people didnt like it then, i was there i saw it

 

[P A Z]

A game like Borderlands 3 would sell what? 5 million in its first year on Steam?

Taking a pure 70% cut of that with none of the new changes made to the cut Steam takes depending on how successful a game is, leaves you at $210m. Also assuming no special editions, DLC or mtx either. But Borderlands 3 will definitely have one or more of these.

You're telling me Epic have paid 2K in excess of that amount to keep the game off Steam for a year?

 

[Delusibeta]

A game like Borderlands 3 would sell what? 5 million in its first year on Steam?

Taking a pure 70% cut of that with none of the new changes made to the cut Steam takes depending on how successful a game is, leaves you at $210m. Also assuming no special editions, DLC or mtx either. But Borderlands 3 will definitely have one or more of these.

You're telling me Epic have paid 2K in excess of that amount to keep the game off Steam for a year?

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That's about two months of Fortnite's income. It'll probably sting, but Epic totally does have the coin to pull it off.

 

[.exe]

Difference is though, you dont have to buy another console, it's just a download. Not really comparable. Being open is a double edge sword.

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It's about convenience and features, even if it's just a download. Even the eShop is more feature rich for crying out loud. It's like if you had to sideload a new store and account system on your console to play certain games but the ecosystem was about as feature rich as the PS2's startup interface and you couldn't use some of your controllers to boot.

 

[Jeff6851]

Them Epic pockets run deep fam

They run hella deep. People also really keep forgetting that the game will continue to sell after the exclusive period. Every sale after that point only puts them even more ahead.

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Yep. I plan to get it used on Xbox at some point and maybe a deep sale when it eventually does come to Steam (assuming the year exclusivity).

 

[Dust]

I will be extremely surprised if it's not exclusive to Epic's store.
Everything aligns to that.

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

[QUOTE

A game like Borderlands 3 would sell what? 5 million in its first year on Steam?

Taking a pure 70% cut of that with none of the new changes made to the cut Steam takes depending on how successful a game is, leaves you at $210m. Also assuming no special editions, DLC or mtx either. But Borderlands 3 will definitely have one or more of these.

You're telling me Epic have paid 2K in excess of that amount to keep the game off Steam for a year?

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We have no idea what the payment and minimum sales guarantees are but it's not clear that BL3 will sell to the same extent as the previous games because now it's not the only looter shooter on the market. Destiny, The Division and Anthem are all big sellers.

 

[Deleted member 42]

A game like Borderlands 3 would sell what? 5 million in its first year on Steam?

Taking a pure 70% cut of that with none of the new changes made to the cut Steam takes depending on how successful a game is, leaves you at $210m. Also assuming no special editions, DLC or mtx either. But Borderlands 3 will definitely have one or more of these.

You're telling me Epic have paid 2K in excess of that amount to keep the game off Steam for a year?

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That's about two months of Fortnite's income. It'll probably sting, but Epic totally does have the coin to pull it off.

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They're not paying 200 million dollars for one games you crazies lol

if it is exclusive they'll guarantee a certain amount of sales in addition to something to sweeten the pot but definitely not that sweet

 

[SirKai]

A game like Borderlands 3 would sell what? 5 million in its first year on Steam?

Taking a pure 70% cut of that with none of the new changes made to the cut Steam takes depending on how successful a game is, leaves you at $210m. Also assuming no special editions, DLC or mtx either. But Borderlands 3 will definitely have one or more of these.

You're telling me Epic have paid 2K in excess of that amount to keep the game off Steam for a year?

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There's also the factor that 2K is still banking on those Steam sales when it does release on Steam a year later. It's not $210m worth of sales that are gone, but delayed, and there will still of course be a lot of sales on the EGS (but definitely nothing to the tune of what it would be on Steam).

[QUOTE


We have no idea what the payment and minimum sales guarantees are but it's not clear that BL3 will sell to the same extent as the previous games because now it's not the only looter shooter on the market. Destiny, The Division and Anthem are all big sellers.

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Most of those aren't on Steam though, and Steam alone is WAY bigger than when BL2 came out in 2012. I have no question that a BL3 Steam launch, at least if it released on Steam in September of this year, would more than double the active player count of BL2 in their respective launch days.

 

[PrimeBeef]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out

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Suckers. But I thought most of you guys loved waiting for sales anyway. I'm a very patient person. I'll be waiting a year longer to play The Outer Worlds, and BL3 if it is exclusive.

 

[ReliableMerman]

Valve going to that model would be so bad PC gaming...Valve would be forced to operate store at loss in certain regions or go full Epic by dropping support for whole regions of the world, cut their R&D for HW and SW etc.

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Wait, how do you guys know so much about a private company's finances? Have they disclosed this information somewhere, or is this armchair theorizing?

 

[Jawmuncher]

They're not paying 200 million dollars for one games you crazies lol

if it is exclusive they'll guarantee a certain amount of sales in addition to something to sweeten the pot but definitely not that sweet

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I'd imagine it'd be something like not having to pay royalties for Unreal usage that year or something (Literally no clue what i'm talking about)

 

[eonden]

Wait, how do you guys know so much about a private company's finances? Have they disclosed this information somewhere, or is this armchair theorizing?

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Valve has stated at GDC that almost 90% of the sales in Asia are through payments method that cost more than the defualt 5% (10%+ in general).

 

[Delusibeta]

They're not paying 200 million dollars for one games you crazies lol

if it is exclusive they'll guarantee a certain amount of sales in addition to something to sweeten the pot but definitely not that sweet

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I dunno, Borderlands 2 has been rolling along from 5k-8k concurrent on Steam alone for about six years now, without any new content. 2K and Gearbox both know this is a massive IP, and I would hope that they got a king's ransom for any exclusivity deal. And even Epic guaranteeing three million sales at US$60 could potentially cost Epic US$158 million