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Ghost Recon Breakpoint will skip Steam for Epic Games Store
- Thread starter vestan
- Start date
This is interesting, let's talk about it. Ubisoft signed a deal with Epic for specific big titles, presumably receiving cash for not releasing these games on Steam for a period of time. Their smaller games and maybe other games that aren't covered by an exclusivity agreement are being released on Steam. So what does that tell us?
1. There is a significant loss in sales by not launching on Steam. Epic's money is enough to offset that loss if there is an exclusivity agreement in place, but not if there isn't. The reduced cut by itself isn't enough for Ubisoft to release all of its games only on EGS and uPlay or just uPlay. Steam adds to the sales numbers in a way that Ubisoft doesn't feel like it can match with EGS and uPlay or just uPlay.
2. For all the noise some people are making about Steam's "issues with curation" and how good games are "being buried under a pile of trash", Ubisoft seems to think that launching niche games on Steam is essential to their success. You'd think that a niche game would greatly benefit from the supposed increased visibility offered by the EGS and uPlay, since both those stores have a very limited games selection. You'd also think that the 12% cut and 0% cut offered by EGS and uPlay would be hugely important to the financial success of a small game compared to Valve's 'ludicrous' 30%. Yet Ubisoft chooses to launch smaller games on Steam, despite the 'visibility issues' and 'unjustified cut'. Isn't that interesting?
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It's also that pubs make less money if ppl buy it through key stores. They buy really cheap retail copys to sell it here. Ubisoft could just kill the retail market on pc completely and they are good with key stores.
Ubisoft is playing it smart, but not exactly pro-consumer. Let's see how it works out for them, because Ubisofts games were selling millions on Steam.
It's still sad that Epic keeps moneyhatting 3rd party games. There are ruining the open nature of pc gaming, and people buying games on EGS are helping them to do so.
It's still sad that Epic keeps moneyhatting 3rd party games. There are ruining the open nature of pc gaming, and people buying games on EGS are helping them to do so.
https://www.twitter.com/EpicGames/status/1127093093101125632
This is getting ridiculous. And yet there's a defense force for what is litterally a spit on the face of customers.
This is getting ridiculous. And yet there's a defense force for what is litterally a spit on the face of customers.
How much money would it take to hire a group of hackers and crash the Epic Store? [/only half joking]
We'd average about what Uplay is wanting, $89 mark or so. Key reseller sites would be about 30-40% off at times.
I mean, following that logic they should kill the console physical retail market too.
There's this assumption that EGS is directly paying for games to not be on Steam and I think that's an assumption that should be questioned. EGS makes exclusivity deals but it should be acknowledged that companies can agree to those deals for reasons other than receiving a direct check. It could be just that EGS is promising to cover the cost of the game's marketing and will place the game in a prominent position in the game's store. That as well as EGS only taking 12% of a game's revenue could be incentive enough for publishers to make an exclusivity agreements. Obviously I don't know and I'm not saying that this is true, but it's something to keep in mind. EGS doesn't necessarily have to pay publishers directly to make exclusivity agreements.
To address you points, I feel as if Ubisoft is still experimenting with the store so I'm not sure how much to read into what they make exclusive and what they don't other than those are the games that EGS thought would be worth making a exclusivity deal for. That said, niche games being buried on Steam is more of a concern for indies and smaller publishers. Not Ubisoft. Ubisoft can afford to market and advertise smaller, niche games if they wanted to, but they don't because they're fine with those games being small and niche. This is different from indies who games are buried and don't have the resources to bring attention to those games.
Considering how incomptent and slapdash their security infrastructure is, hackers don't even have to bother.
The whole point lol. I'm sure epic realizes Ubisoft is playing them for a fool but I guess their hatred towards Steam trumps all.
I don't see why the assumption that Epic is paying in cash for these exclusivity deals should be questioned when multiple developers have already revealed that they were paid in exchange for exclusivity. We have clear and verified evidence that developers were paid and zero evidence that an exclusivity agreement was made for other reasons. Not to mention that "a promise to cover marketing costs" is simply another form of payment. Based on the existing evidence it is absolutely safe to assume that Epic's exclusivity deals include a moneyhat.
As for your second point, I think it reinforces the point I made earlier. Ubisoft is a big publisher, they have the resources to push smaller niche games into the spotlight, so in theory it would make quite a lot of sense for them to pull the games from Steam and market them so that they gain even more customers on their own storefront. For these smaller games Ubisoft has four choices: A, launch them on Steam with minimal marketing and pay Valve 30%. B, launch them with minimal marketing on EGS and uPlay, pay Epic 12% and keep all the revenue from uPlay sales. C, launch them with minimal marketing on uPlay and keep all the revenue. D, launch them with stronger marketing on uPlay and keep all the revenue.
The fact that they chose option A is in my opinion a very clear indication that for smaller and niche games Steam is by far the best choice, even for companies that in theory can afford different high-margin options. It stands to reason that this is even more so the case for developers who don't have the higher-margin or stronger-marketing options.
Just for that insult, I'm going actually hire hackers to DDOS the hell out of the Epic Store
Wow, that's some impressive store management right there. Either way this isn't a surprise, but Breakpoint looks to have less ugly political overtones than Wildlands, so maybe I'll get on board via uplay. Although with the crazy price gouging this opens up for (going by The Division 2), I doubt it.
Could you link me developers saying that they were paid in exchange for exclusivity? I see Phoenix Point claimed they were paid a minimum sales guarantee but I'm not seeing much else. I did specify directly paying for exclusivity, and while it's kinda subjective, I would say covering marketing costs and minimum sales guarantees are an indirect form of payment. I think those kinds of deals are much more typical than the traditional idea of moneyhats where a developer is handed a bag full of cash to make a game exclusive. Which I'm skeptical happens ever but people seem to believe in.
I think my point is that what the risks for Ubisoft's smaller games aren't the same risks for indie developer's smaller games. The concerns that a game will be buried on Steam is is less of a concern for Ubisoft than it is for an indie or small developer. So Ubisoft can rely on Steam not burying their game and enjoy their high userbase. That's a luxury not everyone can afford. Steam is also fairly ingrained in the PC marketplace so Ubisoft playing it safe and only having some games miss Steam makes sense for a risk-averse publisher because Ubisoft is already known on Steam. I also want to note that EGS is still fairly new and not well established, so it being a haven for those smaller games might not be true. After all, it can be true that Steam buries smaller games, but also that EGS isn't necessarily better for those smaller games. So there will be an adjustment period as developers and publishers try to determine EGS' viability. Switch is pretty good for indie games now, but it took a while for it to build up that reputation. It could be the same for EGS. Or it might not, who knows.
Its never that simple.
Let me ask, we recently had a thread asking if it was time for games to raise beyond the $60 standard price.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/is-it-time-for-games-to-start-costing-70-new.115478/
Would it be honest, fair, and a reasonable conclusion to say if you didn't go to that poll and vote YES that you were anti developers? Of course not, there's nuance to these things. There's also the need to clarify that any extra "cut" the store is giving publishers is going to the publishers. The developers and coders aren't getting that money and splitting it. In fact the developers behind a few of these deals have publicly stated that they were not involved in the decision making at all.
Consumers like competition in the markets they shop in. Let me step in and close down all auto mechanics in your neighborhood sans one (a brand new one you have never used because they just opened; with less amenities, discounts and features than your existing preferred mechanic). Then if you dare to state that you preferred using your tried and true old mechanic, with their great customer service and superior features and benefits; I'll tell you how horrible you are because this change will help this shop owner make more money and our small business owners deserve better in this country....
Take note, that other stores existing like GOG and other competitors have never been a problem. But having an inferior feature set and selection, while trying to force the consumers hand by making something exclusive that otherwise wouldnt be is frowned upon, especially in the PC gaming space. Which point in gaming history would you say was more competitive (in a way that benefited consumers/gamers) the point Before EA was sold an exclusive license for NFL games? Or Afterwards?
If Epic wants to compete in this space, more power to them. But people are always going to prefer them to compete on the ground. Show me feature parity first... selection parity, price parity, and on and on. Don't cut big checks for exclusivity then try to hide behind "Oh yeah? Well our Publisher cut is higher, so either you approve of my shenanigans or you are anti developer! muahahahaha!"
No one is going to fall for that.
I don't have any proof but I think it's pretty obvious the exclusivity was paid for. I'm not even saying that as a bad thing, though.
I won't provide links, sorry. It's nothing personal of course, but it has been a pattern in EGS threads that people enter them and ask for information that has been posted multiple times in these last few months. It is a big waste of time and personally I think it encourages the repetition of that behavior so I've stopped doing that. Again, it's not personal, I've just grown tired of linking and explaining the same things over and over again.
Anyway, I don't think that the specific way that each moneyhat is offered changes anything. Whether it's cash upfront, guaranteed sales or paying for marketing, it's all a form of payment.
Sales numbers is the best way to know. Switch is good for indie games but it's a special case as a portable platform with a newly established (and as such pretty empty at first) store. Indie games routinely sell more on Steam than any other non-portable platform. Check out platform breakdowns from almost every indie developer in the last years and you'll see it yourself. The facts simply don't support the assumption that good games on Steam are losing visibility from bad games.
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EGS pays for exclusivity deal, because no publisher will ever agree to release a game only on EGS and ignore other stores for free.
In case of Ubisoft. It's possible to have that without exchange of money upfront if Epic demands exclusivity and doesn't charges for mtx in return. It doesn't matter whether it's because Epic can't process in-game mtx on their platform or not. The fact is that right now, despite being sold on EGS, Epic makes zilch off the mtx on Ubi games whereas steam makes 20%. That alone could put them in a position where Epic demands exclusivity.
What's better?
EGS 100% MTX + Steam 70% MTX or EGS 100% MTX alone? (Excluding uPlay)
Ubisoft loves money, Epic Games offers money in exchange of exclusivity, it's basic business, no publisher will ever agree to leave a platform of 90 MAU users without getting paid or if the publisher makes his own store, even if you get 100% in MTX. If you think Ubisoft is going to EGS only because they offer 100% MTX and no moneyhat you are delusional.
If the 100% MTX was the real issue why did they release games on Steam until this year? On uPlay they got 100% MTX revenue but they kept releasing on Steam because they know they will make more money, now Epic games is offering money to lock Steam.
It doesn't matter what I personally think. You aren't even aware that Ubi would make 80% and not 70% off Ubi games because the cut for steam is lower when it comes to big games. I am bringing that up because I want you to realise that I am well aware of the facts here and my points are made after careful analysing. But please do insult me some more and call me delusional just because they happen to be different that yours.
Now if you want to actually debate then please read carefully.
I said if the condition to get 100% off mtx is that EGS demands exclusivity and no key sales elsewhere then Ubi can decide to go for it without getting paid upfront. In that situation the "EGS 100% mtx + 80% Steam mtx" you are proposing is a hypothetical that simply cannot exist. The question you should instead be asking is what's better? "80% steam mtx + 100% uplay mtx" or "100% EGS mtx + 100% uplay mtx". And I personally would pick the latter, any given day of the week for an Ubisoft game.
I can't even understand why anyone would reward Epic for their shitty moneyhats by buying Ubisofts games in the Epic Store, while you can just buy them on uPlay.
You know what's better? "100% EGS mtx + 100% uplay MTX + Steam 80/70% MTX", that's better and you can't deny it.
Steam can't happen because obviously Epic Games is blocking it, that's a fact, you can twist it as much as you like but this is what happening right now, moneyhat in exchange of exclusivity, if they paid for small indies they have no problems with doing so for AAA games. Fucking Borderlands 3 is a 6 months exclusive and you think T2 agreed for only "100% MTX" and no payment in advance for their biggest fall 2019 game? Take-Two agreed to lock Borderlands 3 on a store and exclude Steam without getting paid? Do you seriously believe this?
I'm done here.
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Fair enough, I take you at your word. If I missed information that was present in past threads then I'll accept that. I do disagree that how an exclusivity agreement is made doesn't matter. I think the perception of how Epic makes exclusivity agreements matters a lot because how it's currently framed makes it seem like Epic is almost literally bribing games to be on their store when the reality is likely more nuanced than that.
This is true, but it's worth pointing out that this can be true and also Steam can still have a visibility problem. Indie games can be very successful on Steam but can just as often be buried. Admittedly, I don't have any strong data at hand to prove without a shadow of a doubt that this is true, but I'm also inclined to at least take the idea seriously.
As you should. However, my opinion on the matter is that the issue of visibility is not due to crap games or shovelware. It's due to the fact that Steam has an absolutely massive catalog of decent to great games and a flood of new ones get added to the service every month. Steam can and should improve its systems to better match games with potentially interested gamers but the volume of good content is such that visibility for everyone might be an unobtainable utopia. The audience's money and time are being saturated by an enormous amount of content.
Win win partnership seeing that Ubisoft wanted to leave Steam eventually. There's plenty proof that games don't need Steam to do well, and that's money on the table for the games that don't need it for visibility. PC is open, imagine if Epic put Fortnite on Google play when they didn't have to? Free money for Google when Epic could host the apk themselves.
They have already announced to be working on an EGS for Android.
Edit: nevermind, seems like you're trolling
No, I wasn't. EGS on android, interesting. I wonder if they are going to try to get developers to release their games there instead of google play haha. What cut does Google play get from devs anyway? I can't imagine the kind of money Google and Apple must be pulling in from mobile app loot boxes and microtransactions. Actually with Stadia, and Apple arcade (or whatever it's call), I guess I can imagine it haha.
Google and Apple get the 30% cut off games. I dunno if Google does this next bit, but Apple also wants a cut of any transactions on the store, including subscriptions and digital purchases.
That's why apps like Vudu and such don't allow you to buy anything there, only download/watch what you already own.
Good stuff right there, good stuff. EGS is so good. Saving us from Steam!
There was the same level of revolt against UPlay when all of these launchers were coming out and had exclusive games or forced users to use their launchers. Now people are pointing to UPlay as their savior from EGS :).
I don't like exclusivity agreements, but they are common in almost every single industry. When one player in the industry has a near monopoly, I don't understand how anyone can be expected to build market share any other way.
I definitely believe that the end state of this situation, which is a more even market share split and competition between Steam, EGS, and other storefronts requiring no more exclusivity deals is obviously a better state than the state of the PC gaming industry before EGS.
I don't like exclusivity agreements, but they are common in almost every single industry. When one player in the industry has a near monopoly, I don't understand how anyone can be expected to build market share any other way.
I definitely believe that the end state of this situation, which is a more even market share split and competition between Steam, EGS, and other storefronts requiring no more exclusivity deals is obviously a better state than the state of the PC gaming industry before EGS.
Price competition for customers, revenue split competition for developers, better visibility for different games on different storefronts, better customer service to attract customers, etc.
Competition is rarely a bad thing in any market for anyone involved except the storefront / monopoly itself.
I understand that many may disagree with me that the ends justify the means, and that's fair, but it's hard to argue that Steam hasn't gotten complacent and competition may result in a better Steam as well.
That's what I said. Unlike with consoles, publishers are free to release their game how and where they want on PC and Android (I don't know about IOS/Mac). There's no Sony or Microsoft to run your apps or games by for certification to sell on the only digital store store or method with the disk sale royalties. You need their dev kits, you need to have a relationship with them, and you need to follow their rules. You can release your game on your facebook page the second you finished a build, patch, or alpha if you so please, but on a closed platform like Switch you can't (not counting game makers like Little Big Planet, Mario Maker, or Dreams of course). Funny enough, Epic was the only developer I remember being able to release patches when they felt like it on PS4 with Paragon, keeping up with PC without sending it through Sony certification. I'm guessing they can do it with Fortnite now too, and probably got Microsoft to allow them to patch when they want.
PC not being open would be Microsoft certifying, selling, and collecting royalties on every app or game developed for Windows, and Linux distros doing the same.
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