Louise Shorthouse, a games research analyst at IHS Markit, has written the following article on Gamasutra. Here are some extracts from the article, more in the link
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Louise Shorthouse, "Epic Games' attempt to go fee-free on Google Play indicates disappointing Android performance"
- Thread starter Arthands
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Yeah it would be madness for Google to waive their cut.
Epic don't seem to have a problem with the tyranny of the 30% on iOS, Playstation, Xbox, Switch etc. I just wish they would show some consistency. If they think 30% is an unreasonable cut (it's not) then they should pull Fortnite from all platforms that mandate a 30% cut.
They just want to have their cake and eat it too.
Epic don't seem to have a problem with the tyranny of the 30% on iOS, Playstation, Xbox, Switch etc. I just wish they would show some consistency. If they think 30% is an unreasonable cut (it's not) then they should pull Fortnite from all platforms that mandate a 30% cut.
They just want to have their cake and eat it too.
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Ah, yes, an intention made clear by Epic's push for the exception to apply to Fortnite and only Fortnite.
Because his dumbass statements actually work on people who aren't really paying attention
you see this happen in threads about the Epic game store all the time
Epic seems to be asking for Google's cut to be reduced all the way to zero. That's just silly. They can't have been expecting Google to actually agree to that.
the google trend graph looks pretty bad tbh
just crashed after that black hole event again and went lower than ever in interest
It's interesting how Fortnite has been falling while PUBG seems to have grown.
It's called grandstanding.
You know, the Epic Games Store also has issues in countries that aren't the US. It's as if they don't understand global business.
Don't worry though, all they're doing is trying to "trigger a change in smartphone industry practices". They're totally not doing this to reach a larger audience while paying no money to the people who can reach it.
To be fair, there is a granule of truth: while 30% isn't unreasonable, there is undoubtedly room for improvement, a sentiment even former Valve vet Chet Faliszek has echoed (sorry, but I don't have the tweet on-hand, for some reason). The sweet spot is what gives devs a higher share without compromising the operational integrity of the platform (again, a sentiment shared by Faliszek), something Epic's 88/12 and, of course, Discord's reactionary 90/10 clearly do not, and it's probably whatever CDPR landed on, particularly as GOG tends to be a rounding error when it comes to recent games that aren't from CDPR itself.
Valve has held numerous indie roundtables since Epic muscled in on the scene, and I can only imagine the question of "Is there any intention of revising the revenue share for lower-tier earners?" has been a common one, so it's probably only a matter of time before Valve revises its current revenue split tiers.
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Yes I'm sure companies would like to make more money, but if 30% wasn't fair, Epic wouldn't need to pay publishers huge sums of money to not release their games on Steam.
Nothing lasts forever. Hopefully Epic stashed away some of that cash and didn't spend it all on the PC game store.
One the Fortnite craze bottoms out I can't see where Epic isn't a great acquisition by bigger players. Owning the Unreal engine and Fortnite IP would turn Stadia into a success overnight for example. Or buying them could solve EA's game engine problems and Epic's store combined with Origin would finally be a competitor that would make Steam meet its match. Just so much potential for Epic under new management.
One the Fortnite craze bottoms out I can't see where Epic isn't a great acquisition by bigger players. Owning the Unreal engine and Fortnite IP would turn Stadia into a success overnight for example. Or buying them could solve EA's game engine problems and Epic's store combined with Origin would finally be a competitor that would make Steam meet its match. Just so much potential for Epic under new management.
I'm not defending Epic -- hell, half the reason I came back to Era after a two-month break from the internet was to set the record straight on how Sweeney pointing to an outdated version of the Steamworks documentation to say belatedly giving Steam keys to Shenmue 3 backers wouldn't be possible was nauseatingly disingenuous -- just saying there is a valid conversation to be had around the question of "Is 70/30 set in stone or is there room for platform holders to budge?".
You know, if Tim Sweeney wasn't so terribly at hiding his hypocrisy, then he probably would've asked for Google to only take the same cut that Epic takes on its own store. Hey, Tim, how about giving developers on EGS full exemption from your fees?
Perhaps that conversation can happen, but it can't be centered around Sweeney's transparently disingenuous talking points if it's to be a productive conversation.
Agreed. The only reason I used it as an entry point is due to the context that is this thread, which is why I opened by saying that 30% isn't unreasonable -- a sentiment Sweeney evidently and emphatically disagrees with.
Edit: Since I'm "wearing" an avatar atypical of my avatar history, I should note that I've been sceptical of Epic's cut since EGS was announced. I'm not a newcomer to the EGS conversation and am not in any way implicitly carrying water for Epic.
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Yeah it's just challenging to separate that from the circumstances of who is asking for it and why. The ulterior motives are as clear as day in both cases.
Edit: Sorry, never mind, I slightly misread your post and thought you were taking a jab at me.
Because it works, or did you miss the other egs threads here? People fall for that shit all the time.
That's perhaps the most amusing element of all this. Sweeney and co. have argued 88/12 is the golden ratio but feel it shouldn't apply to Epic in the case of Fortnite Android because Fortnite Android is Fortnite Android.
<3
No because it's a walled garden so Epic has to follow Apple's rules. The same with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. That's why Epic only bring this thing on open platform like Android and PC.
India has adopted PUBG like crazy, it's literally everywhere. But I doubt Fortnite would be able to do the same because of its graphics. I know casual Indian market a bit.
we havent heard too much about gogs income since that report right? they were barely staying afloat and then laid some people off
im curious where they are now, especially with their new dev share system thing
It'd probably get a huge boost. Good luck convincing Google to give up their cut though. Unlike PC Google pretty much does have a monopoly on Android distribution in most countries.
I doubt EGS is going anywhere soon. It'll probably stick around but just be a smaller storefront like Origin.
I doubt EGS is going anywhere soon. It'll probably stick around but just be a smaller storefront like Origin.
Well they kinda did, Spic allows or will be allowing soon usage of your own payment systems without Wpic getting anything.
In one hand it is just a way to transfer workload to publishers/developers, but in other hand it is nice that they don't take cut from it.
You know that FN money is going to many other things, beside the store right?
See the engine for example, that FN money enables Epic to pour crazy money into it, which helps facilitate development of games from indies and AAA alike. That is not counting other things that benefit the industry as a whole, like the Megagrant.
We cannot tell what Epic will choose to cut if that bank goes empty, it'd be a shame if they choose to save the store and cut the others.
Epic will choose whatever will bring them constant revenue stream. That is biggest reason why they even created the store.
CDP is publicly traded as of early 2009, so it routinely publishers financial data for investors. The latest consolidated financial statement is for H1 this year, which states that GOG's total revenue for the first half of the year was roughly $21.2m, representing an operating profit of $168k.
This, soooo much this.
Valve put that 30% to good use to constantly update and innovate the industry.
That's what I mean. People keep wishing death on FN, without realizing what negative effects that will bring.
I would rather FN to live, so that they can put that money into other aspects. I would rather put up with the bad so that the good can thrive, than having nothing at all. Hopefully they will improve the EGS to be a positive force like their engine is. But FN dying is not what will bring that change.
Honestly I think that they made mistake with engine and licensing model. When Fortnite started making money they went full charity with engine licensing model without taking in consideration what will happen when Fortnite slows down. Don't get me wrong it is great what they did but you shouldn't make that big decisions based on one product success.
I doubt Fortnite would ever truly die out but it could become more like WoW (pre-classic server hype) where it is a consistent high earner each month but not making obscene amounts such as $300 million/month.. Also, Epic's engine makes them a good amount of $ from AAA publishers (5% royalty or some other negotiated rate) so they would still have a bright future with Unreal Engine 5 on PS5/XSX.
One thing I really don't understand is that if the EGS 88/12% split is truly enough plus all the Fortnite $, then why is EGS still so primitive/lackluster as a launcher and storefront?
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I would argue it to be a gamble, more so than a mistake. They want to utilize that surge of income to make the barrier entry to use their engine as low as possible. Going free to use is certainly more appealing and feasible to indies, which is a market they are not doing as well against Unity.
They are betting everything they have to make sure their engine is used in all brackets of developers, and removing all the fees is certainly a great way to do it.
This article tells a good story about their strategy since its beginning, and I think that fits. https://www.polygon.com/a/epic-4-0/the-four-lives-of-epic-games
Because they know they cannot compete with Steam with functionalities, and even if they can, they cannot compete with the mind-share. So they chose the strategy of minimum viable product, which is literally a place where you can buy and download games. And utilize other means to secure users. They would be in a huge loss if they spent all the money to make a competitive store and release in 2 - 3 years. Maybe not even then.
So with this strategy, they already have some users and developers on board, recoup some money and have a foot in the market, with only a bare minimum store.
They are betting on the idea that when they have a good enough store, the users will not be so against it, and then they will not have to pour money into those other means.
It is certainly not nice for end users for now, but I believe they can make it so that it is not as painful in the future, judging by their other products, which are top notch. I can't say how long though, they are certainly taking longer than I would like, probably they are over their heads.
Or maybe they will fail, call it quit, and things go back to the way it was.
As other have said before in this and the other thead, it is insane to think of any reality where Google would give up their cut for epic and fortnite, not just because that would cause Google all kinds of headaches with the other games on the playstore that make big money who would come asking for a nice deal too, but also because it's pretty clear here which of the two companies wants fortnite on the playstore more....
maybe epic might have had a chance to get a deal on lowering the 30% when fortnite was the biggest thing in not just gaming circles but mainstream attention and was about to launch on mobile, then maybe I could see them having a tiny chance to sign a deal for a lower cut with Google maybe in exchange for not being on iOS for a while, but that was never something epic would want to give up based on how much they seem to focus on a USA based market approach to the EGS etc and how big iOS store money is in the USA compared to other countries and android, but now that epic already tried to avoid playstore and make people sideload, and all this data is showing that the game is slowing in growth etc, it's pretty clear Google can also tell that epic need googles store more than Google needs them right now, so epic need to cut the shit and suck it up, you play by the rules the platform set or you don't get on the platform.
It's one thing to claim that steam isn't doing things right on the open platform steam is on, and to make your own store to try and compete with them, even if I don't like how they do things and don't ever plan to use their store, but it's another thing fully to be wanting to use another company's platform while still demanding you pay them nothing for the userbase they have built and are giving you access to, get out of here with that shit.
maybe epic might have had a chance to get a deal on lowering the 30% when fortnite was the biggest thing in not just gaming circles but mainstream attention and was about to launch on mobile, then maybe I could see them having a tiny chance to sign a deal for a lower cut with Google maybe in exchange for not being on iOS for a while, but that was never something epic would want to give up based on how much they seem to focus on a USA based market approach to the EGS etc and how big iOS store money is in the USA compared to other countries and android, but now that epic already tried to avoid playstore and make people sideload, and all this data is showing that the game is slowing in growth etc, it's pretty clear Google can also tell that epic need googles store more than Google needs them right now, so epic need to cut the shit and suck it up, you play by the rules the platform set or you don't get on the platform.
It's one thing to claim that steam isn't doing things right on the open platform steam is on, and to make your own store to try and compete with them, even if I don't like how they do things and don't ever plan to use their store, but it's another thing fully to be wanting to use another company's platform while still demanding you pay them nothing for the userbase they have built and are giving you access to, get out of here with that shit.
I know why they went free with UE4, bigger publishers stiped using 3rd party engines and are using their own these days (there are exceptions) so they had to expand. Unity was holding indie scene so they went after that market. My point is that if they come to point where they need to cut things it will be tough.
And regarding the store, it will be long time until they even start breaking even at this rate. They are not only spending money buying exclusives, they are buying those free games they are giving away and their last sales event they were losing money on each sale.
Wait I only just clicked in my head that this guy wants Google to take 0 cut from epic for fortnite on the google playstore, and when called out how insane that sounds his defense was that he wasn't trying to only get a cut for him but wants to change how the mobile market works? Like he wants everyone to be able to get the same deal?
Does this guy have an actual plan for how to sell this great vision of change for the mobile market to Google and I assume apple down the line where both Google and apple would allow everyone to use their services and such to make money while they themselves make 0% of that money and somehow need to keep paying for the costs of upkeep on the services and platforms etc?
Again maybe just me being dumb about business but if you want to use that as a defense I would probably not go for a literal 0% cut for the company running the services you want to make millions using.....
Does this guy have an actual plan for how to sell this great vision of change for the mobile market to Google and I assume apple down the line where both Google and apple would allow everyone to use their services and such to make money while they themselves make 0% of that money and somehow need to keep paying for the costs of upkeep on the services and platforms etc?
Again maybe just me being dumb about business but if you want to use that as a defense I would probably not go for a literal 0% cut for the company running the services you want to make millions using.....
