I wonder if we will be able to extrapolate a figure for how much Epic paid the developer in total with the information Fig share with investors.From an email from Fig to its investors in Phoenix Point from a half hour ago (I added bold for emphasis):
From an email from Fig to its investors in Phoenix Point from a half hour ago (I added bold for emphasis):
So it just occurred to me.. will this be the first EGS sales data we see all because of Fig?
The sales information wont be made to the investors? Thats kind of wild.No, at most we might find out how much Epic paid them. But given it's going to be on Game Pass, and thus got a payment from MS as well, the water is already muddied.
The sales information wont be made to the investors? Thats kind of wild.
Today he didn't just took the money, he sold out his name. From today name Julian Gollop means a lot less to core audience. Unless they got Epic to fund their future games they will need luck to find resources, because they are not getting them from fans again.
But the corwd funding was the safety net.I don't really think gamers understand how hard it is to make money with indie games. Gamers mostly just buy the hits, so unless you get lucky and make one of those unicorn games, you're probably just throwing years of hard work and personal investment down the drain.
Epic is offering a safety net that gamers do not.
This safety net is better
At the expense of destroying your old one and never being able to use it again
The mantra of every thread involving Epic lmao
This is the third tier of safety nets lol. Crowd funded / Fig investments, then the Xbox Game Pass deal, then this. This game hedged its bets on it's hedged bets on it's hedged bets. I'm dying to know whether or not they owe Fig investors a proportion of revenue from copies sold only, or also from these other deals.
Dear Investor,
We are exited to share that Snapshot has announced today that they have signed a deal with Epic games for one year of exclusive distribution of Phoenix Point on their game store. As a reminder to shareholders, upfront payments paid by distributors to Snapshot are counted as revenue, and contribute to returns for Fig investors. We will be releasing additional information on how investors of Fig Game Shares - Phoenix Point will be affected by this deal in the near future, so stay tuned for updates.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected].
Best,
Fig Team
These devs need to disclose how much they're being money hatted. I'd love to know how much they're willing to sell out for.
I had forgotten about it's original release and just picked it up last week. It's a really fantastic game. I went to check out the community and such and found that it was near nonexistent. Like less than 2k subscribers in the subreddit. I can't help but think that releasing it into the Steam ecosystem would have been a better move.
I doubt they were planning on releasing much paid DLC until this deal happened and they scrambled to make it sound better to their backers.How much DLC were they planning to release in the first year?!
If it means having a profitable game that is money for the future though. Metro imo maybe made less sense as they had the console sales too. In any case I don't think there's devs taking the money hat without running the numbers. 4A probably ran the numbers and were like yeah our launch 1st year sales on the last 2 games weren't even that much, so probably an easy decision.
These devs need to disclose how much they're being money hatted. I'd love to know how much they're willing to sell out for.
Taking money is always an easy decision. If it comes down to "give customers what they want" or "give ourselves what we want," the latter wins every time. Nobody is questioning the financial motivations here. We're just disappointed that developers are so quick to throw their customers to the gutter.
I'm pretty sure they're contractually prohibited from disclosing those numbers. I'm surprised they're even allowed to mention the bribes at all (though it's possible that the devs who have done so did it in violation of their contract).
Honoring preorders on other stores and still allowing everyone else to buy it at another store is throwing your customers to the curb?
Retailers buy exclusive lines all the time. Is a fashion house setting up an exclusive retailer for something throwing their customer to the curb?
No. It's hey loyal customer, here is where you can buy this. It's not some insane concept.
What are you talking about? Phoenix Point isn't available on other stores. The dev said that they'll give backers a Steam/GOG key after the 1-year EGS exclusivity contract ends. If I had backed the game with the expectation of receiving a Steam or GOG key at launch (as was originally promised), I'd be pretty pissed off right now.
I swear, EGS defenders don't even bother reading or doing any research before spouting their nonsense.
I can get on board with this.I could see future crowdfunded games having to add in binding language regarding which stores their products will appear on in the future as a result of this.
My bad, I guess I misread the first page of the thread. Thought they were providing steam and gog keys to backers for launch. If they really don't do that that's pretty crappy.
I had forgotten about it's original release and just picked it up last week. It's a really fantastic game. I went to check out the community and such and found that it was near nonexistent. Like less than 2k subscribers in the subreddit. I can't help but think that releasing it into the Steam ecosystem would have been a better move.
Wouldn't help here. They'd just call this a 1-year delay for backers.I could see future crowdfunded games having to add in binding language regarding which stores their products will appear on in the future as a result of this.
something like "must appear on Steam/GOG/itch.io/whatever no later than the release date on any other store" or some such.Wouldn't help here. They'd just call this a 1-year delay for backers.
Phoenix Point – the upcoming humans vs. aliens tactics game from Snapshot Games and original X-Com brain Julian Gollop – will be making its debut exclusive to Epic's rapidly growing store. This is one of the few deals which seem to have worked out well for potential players, too. Epic's backing has allowed Snapshot to confirm a full year of paid DLC, all of which will be free for those who backed the game's Kickstarter or otherwise pre-ordered it up until now. The game may be available elsewhere after that first year, but for now the planned Steam and GOG launches are off the cards. Below, an explanation video from Gollop himself.
Whatever your feelings may be on how Epic are handling their competition with Valve, it's hard to deny that whatever they're selling, developers seem to want it. The deal Epic cut with Snapshot Games has earned the studio the kind of stability that allows them to promise a full year of DLC without requiring a publisher. On a purely personal level, this is working out in my favour, too – I'd put some money down on a discounted pre-order some time ago. Finding that my £19 gets me a year of expansions too is just icing on the cake, and I honestly don't mind switching stores.
Whatever your feelings may be on how Epic are handling their competition with Valve, it's hard to deny that whatever they're selling, developers seem to want it.
This is one of the few deals which seem to have worked out well for potential players, too.
Except that they're just helping those developers that would have hits, that are known entities. They're not helping those that are truly unknown, that would benefit best from this.
You both are right that Epic is not acting like a charity that helps starving artist devs -- and I don't blame them; they can't hold the industry up themselves, Epic would just be tying themselves to games that gamers don't buy. But I don't think it's safe to assume this game would have been profitable without the help. Wouldn't be surprised if they already ran out of the fig money -- they started development over 2 years ago and $700k doesn't go far when you have a team to feed (it's not even enough to pay competitive salaries for a team of 5 over 3 years and I assume their team is larger and obviously has costs beyond salaries). Decent chance they've been taking contract work to keep the studio open -- which is also dangerous because it delays their own projects.I absolutely understand that real people with kids and partners and medical bills make games, but...
That's business in the games industry. I think Epic buying exclusivity for certain titles just delays the inevitability of the industry coming to terms with the fact that the current "mass production" cycle and production costs aren't sustainable. I can see why pubs/devs are taking the Epic money - as you say, guaranteed safety net of cash - but it's just kicking the can down the road. I'm 40 years old and I reasonably have enough games to play and replay until I die. Epic buying exclusivity doesn't solve the wider issues of the industry, it just creates a "fuck you got mine" attitude within it, for those lucky enough to be swept-up. And why are they swept-up? Because they already have good hype and word-of-mouth behind them, for the most part. Which means these "guaranteed safety nets" are - for the most part - only going to the devs/pubs who were more likely to earn money, not the ones who would be genuinely struggling.
*Complains about journalism, doesn't support journalism*But whatevs. Definitely don't feel bad about blocking ads on RPS now.
Yeah honestly they are fantastic developers and the game is already amazing. I doubt they needed any input, but I'm sure it's nice to have some extra cash while they're finishing up the game.Yeah, I was looking at numbers like Twitch viewers and Reddit subs and they were pretty rough. The thing with Early Access is that you try to get as many voices and as much external feedback as possible before 1.0 and this game probably doesn't get as much as it could, though I trust Supergiant to know how to design a game. It would be absolutely terrible for other genres or developers.
And what do customers lose..? They have to use a different launcher to download/update the game.
""Well, I should be very clear," Sweeney said. "The thing that I feel is incredibly important for the future of the industry is that the PC platform remains open, so that any user without any friction can install applications from any developer, and ensure that no company, Microsoft or anybody else, can insert themselves by force as the universal middleman, and force developers to sell through them instead of selling directly to customers. "