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Epic Games Store tops $680 million in player spending and over 100 million users (free games promotion will continue through 2020)
- Thread starter Deleted member 8196
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ITT: a lot of people commenting on how smart Tim Sweeny looks as he streaks down the road buck naked.
I've gotten almost all free games so far but that's it. It is just too convenient to use Steam, I know I can just download a game played years ago and be sure to return at where I left, plus you can always find some helpful souls that solved a tech problem you're having or a place you're stuck in the game. Plus, as a consumer I don't see that many games that are much lower than I can find on Steam, to justify a regular use of the platform.
As a consumer can't say I have much to complain about. Loved the free games and my Epic games library is starting to rival my Steam library now.
Went ahead and bought The Walking Dead Definitive edition during the Winter Sale. EGS will stay relevant as long as they retain their strategy of making games exclusive to the platform.
Went ahead and bought The Walking Dead Definitive edition during the Winter Sale. EGS will stay relevant as long as they retain their strategy of making games exclusive to the platform.
got control for 12 dollars, got a bunch of free games and end up buying Detroit.
I still prefer Steam, but little by little this preference is getting more and more insignificant.
I still prefer Steam, but little by little this preference is getting more and more insignificant.
I hope most of that money went to Control and Outer Wilds because these two games are some of the best sci-fi content I've either played, watched or read in years. Absolute masterclass.
Everything is a matter of perspective, I guess. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against people who want to enjoy free games / etc on EGS or developers who get funded. I'm just against how Epic has strong-armed itself into the market and brought (in my opinion) some bad things like exclusivity deals along for the ride.
actually this is life.
different people with different visions over the same fact.
I got Control for SIX dollars with the regional pricing and the coupon. My PC can't run it but hey.
You may also frame it like this:
One poster has 3000 posts on PS4/PS5 topics and decided to post for the first time on a PC centric topic. The other one is a regular PC poster.
Basically business as usual in EGS threads.
That is some really bad results, i expected their revenue to be way higher... If their gain was only around 30 million, then they must be bleeding Money like crazy, since they paid 10 million for control exclusive deal, just think how much they paid for rdr2, metro, Borderlands 3 and Ubisoft deals then. And not to think of the free games and their 2 mega sales, that is not the numbers i would love to see if i was the CEO of epic games
You have to claim them during a set window, but all you need in order to do that is an account. Just check in once a week and grab the free stuff, that's how I do it.
The euro store is still strangely expensive, even with the recent sale + coupon deal I was hard pressed to find an actual good offer on anything I didn't already own elsewhere. Nothing like their first sale, which remains the only time I've spent money there.
It's pointless to speculate whether it's viable or profitable without knowing their expenditures.
For what it's worth, $6.30 D365 LTS is not a bad number. In fact, it's quite good.
But I've said this over and over in other EGS threads--if they're continuing the free games program, it means it's working for them.
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I just noticed that total war three Kingdoms sold between 2-5 million copies on steam according to steamspy, so 1 game on steam probably had more revenue than whole epic stores third party revenue... No wonder valve dont care then, they must be laughing at that
Also anyone commenting on "bad numbers" and "not/barely making a profit"... please get it through your head that turning a profit is rarely a goal for a new venture.
There's a reason they considered the revenue "60% higher than forecast." In their eyes, this is performing extremely well.
There's a reason they considered the revenue "60% higher than forecast." In their eyes, this is performing extremely well.
That's actually quite piss poor if total profits from third parties are at ~$30 million despite all the aggressive exclusivity grabs. What they've announced so far for 2020 is far more underwhelming than their aggressive previous year.
Eh, Ill continue claiming free games but their current strategy is as half assed as they started with the damned thing.
Eh, Ill continue claiming free games but their current strategy is as half assed as they started with the damned thing.
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They're in big trouble is Fortnite spending continues to decline. It's the lifeblood of the EGS.
If they stop giving free games I can see myself subbing to their weekly 1-5 games service. You get to keep them forever and they really really flood my library with awesome games that I would have never even tried, and the games hardly ever have DRM attached to them.
I've noticed that I don't really value ownership in other stores than Steam and GOG. Just this month I wasted one of my Humble Choices on Bad North not realizing that I already had it on Epic. It's too convenient to have your games listed in one place - especially when that place is the only one even trying to have controller support (Steam Big Picture).
I am fine with playing F2P and subscription games elsewhere, like I'll buy one month of Uplay+ to play Watch Dogs Legion. I can always cancel the subs and say bye bye to the launcher and leave nothing behind, which is what I will do with the terrible abomination that is Game Pass. Too bad I have two years of it but it's definitely going after it's over.
I am fine with playing F2P and subscription games elsewhere, like I'll buy one month of Uplay+ to play Watch Dogs Legion. I can always cancel the subs and say bye bye to the launcher and leave nothing behind, which is what I will do with the terrible abomination that is Game Pass. Too bad I have two years of it but it's definitely going after it's over.
Good catch and par for the course when it comes to EGS discussion.
I have the same issue as you. Haven't double-dipped on anything accidentally yet, but I definitely still consider Steam my primary library.
That said, part of the strategy for Epic here is to establish enough of a library with free games that you do care. This may not apply to folks with thousands of Steam games, but it will be formative for Fortnite players and the entire generation of F2P gamers that spend most of their time on individual game launchers.
Sure, there's 'loss leading' with bought-for timed exclusives and free games, but on a fundamental level, it'll really depend on what next year brings.
While I have no doubt EGS is working on securing unannounced releases, I'm still extremely hesitant to call any of their purchased exclusives except for BL3 'worth' their investment - Maybe Satisfactory and WWZ? We don't know, as we don't have numbers.
And to be honest, most of the exclusives they 'have' shown for 2020 are pretty 'meh', personally - and even without my own feelings, I don't see any 'system seller' on their list so far.
But going back to the underlying 'loss lead to pull ahead' strategy.....what, aside from their current offerings, makes you think they'll wait out the multiple years of this in order to get a bigger fraction of Steam's market share?
Especially when they're (again presumably) quite in the red after the 1st year, and Fornite is on the decline, albeit slowly.
And on the free games front, they've already 're-used' several games from early on in the year - I'm happy more people got to play them, but if they're already pulling back older releases, I'm not sure it bodes well for their 'well' of games to choose from.
Not really feeling the need to celebrate a predatory games launcher like some of you all; but if you want free games that badly I can't stop you from accepting them.
And really I'm not that impressed with their numbers anyway considering how much effort and money they're throwing at the storefront and for exclusive titles. My take is they're having a very difficult time getting their userbase to buy games unless they're heavily discounted and giving out $10 off coupons.
And really I'm not that impressed with their numbers anyway considering how much effort and money they're throwing at the storefront and for exclusive titles. My take is they're having a very difficult time getting their userbase to buy games unless they're heavily discounted and giving out $10 off coupons.
And still not given users a single reason to buy games from EGS over Steam. That money spent on third party games will largely be because Epic paid to get the games removed from Steam.
Interesting that after doing a handful of Epic Store exclusives and giveaways, Telling Lies and Sayonara Wild Hearts from Annapurna Interactive did *not* release on EGS. Not even in addition to being on Steam. Which kinda supports my theory that paying big bucks to get games on your store trains publishers to only support your store in the event that they are being paid big bucks upfront to do so.
Seems logical to me that if if there's no reason for customers to buy from Epic store over Steam et all, there's no reason for publishers to release on Epic store without Epic dipping into their mountain of V-Bucks.
Epic's strategy of "Throw money around everywhere we can to generate short term attention" is not a strategy that works indefinitely, and we've not seen anything that suggests Epic know what the next phase of the strategy is.
A non-business metaphor. If the only reason people are coming to your birthday party is because they've been told that you've put an iPad in the goodie bags, they probably won't come to your next party if they know there's no goodie bags this time around.
Interesting that after doing a handful of Epic Store exclusives and giveaways, Telling Lies and Sayonara Wild Hearts from Annapurna Interactive did *not* release on EGS. Not even in addition to being on Steam. Which kinda supports my theory that paying big bucks to get games on your store trains publishers to only support your store in the event that they are being paid big bucks upfront to do so.
Seems logical to me that if if there's no reason for customers to buy from Epic store over Steam et all, there's no reason for publishers to release on Epic store without Epic dipping into their mountain of V-Bucks.
Epic's strategy of "Throw money around everywhere we can to generate short term attention" is not a strategy that works indefinitely, and we've not seen anything that suggests Epic know what the next phase of the strategy is.
A non-business metaphor. If the only reason people are coming to your birthday party is because they've been told that you've put an iPad in the goodie bags, they probably won't come to your next party if they know there's no goodie bags this time around.
Their own forecast isn't a good enough metric when you can also look at facts and such.
Basically, if you look at the store numbers:
-250M dollars of revenue based on game sales.
-30M dollars of revenue for Epic through their cut.
That means, in term of revenue, all those games, mostly exclusives, generated 250 millions of dollars.
They had a lot of high profile releases. Heck, those were exclusives to their store. That's basically 4 millions 60 dollars games sold. That's low. That's low when you had: Metro Exodus, Borderlands 3, Control, Ubisoft games, World War Z and such.
That's even lower when you had a load of AA releases and high profile indies like Satisfactory, Mechwarrior 5, The Outwer Worlds, Untitled Goose Game and Outer Wilds.
In a year, in a curated environnement, by moneyhatting big AAA games, they managed 250M of dollars of revenue.
And their own revenue on top of that was 30M dollars. We know they paid 23M of dollars of 10 dollar coupons (which means less than 2.3 millions of sales during their two biggest sales event, going for more than 2 weeks each of them, even a month. And some of those coupons could be get by redeeming free games). We know they paid 10M of dollars for Control exclusivity. Just by those two facts, they failed to generated enough revenue to cover their sales and ONE exclusive.
Of course, the point is to be a loss leader to make an entry in the market.
But it also proves something: A year of free games and 10 dollar coupons wasn't enough to convert people to buy there, despite big AAA exclusives and high profile indie releases.
We got those numbers when they opened their A game. What will happen once they stop giving free games and coupons ? Where's the growth to be expected once they stop having exclusives ?
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23M of dollars in coupons / discounts means at least 2.3 million sales during the sales, probably up to 3 million if we consider not all games had the coupons. You are wrong on that part.
Make your backlog it's own personal gamepass. Think about it.
Get Twitch Prime activated for more weekly or monthly free games (usually 2+ each month at the least), if you don't have amazon prime, borrow a family member's that don't play PC games.
The wording specified that the 2.3 million is the number of coupons and discounts that Epic paid for, implying that's the combined total of Epic Coupons from their Christmas sale and the number of Epic Discounts redeemed from their Megasale earlier in the year. Given that both were $10 each, the math holds, IMO.
They're buying their market share, there's no 2 ways about it.
Forecasts are meaningless for a private company as they literally have no obligation to provide them so considering we were never told the forecast, they could easily be fibbing.
One day, they'll want to turn a profit. So while it's all nice that they're building good will via bribery, let's see what happens when they need to actually build a viable business plan.
Very happy about this! I've been spending more time in Epic's store/launcher than Steam. Very happy to see some healthy competition here.
He wrote "million dollars in sales" while he should have said "millions of sales". Its a bit of a difference. And yes, it applies to both of the sales, which is why i said ca. 3 million sales in total (I propped the numbers up to greatly offset possible game sales without the coupon / discount for being under 15$).
EGS is specifically anti-competetive.
Paying to get games removed from competing stores is anti-competitive. What kind of definition of competition are you using?
Nice. I've been collecting all these free games and bought myself Hades and John Wick Hex during that ridiculous sale when they were dirt cheap. I still don't believe the mantra of it being "good" for the PC space, to me it's nothing special, just another launcher like any other and I've got about 9 of those on my PC now. Steam still offers more in many ways and is my preference. But I'll happily take free shit and good deals wherever they can be found. If success means more of that, bring it on!
They must have extraordinary salespeople. They got Ubisoft, 2K, etc. on board with a store-wide forecast of <100 Million dollars in revenue.
I'll keep grabbing all those free games.
There are, in my own personal opinion, many reasons why some of us have pretty much stopped posting about PC gaming on ResetEra. And what you said (good eye there) is one of those reasons. It's just not worth it here.
There are, in my own personal opinion, many reasons why some of us have pretty much stopped posting about PC gaming on ResetEra. And what you said (good eye there) is one of those reasons. It's just not worth it here.
This is the silliest talking point on resetera. You know what the word means! Epic avoids competing on (certain) consumer products, as part of their strategy to compete with steam as a storefront. It's like saying walmart and target don't compete because they both stock some exclusive products. Or starbucks doesn't compete with other coffee shops because they coordinate with suppliers to sell exclusive blends.