next »

[Devilkay]

Epic Games, creators of the Unreal Engine and “Fortnite,” Tuesday announced that it is rolling out its own online store for computer games. The online Epic Games Store, which will launch “soon” with a curated selection of PC and Mac games, will grant developers 88 percent of revenue from sales.

“As a developer ourselves, we’ve always wanted access to a store with fair revenue-sharing that gives us direct access to our customers,” Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney told Variety. “Now that we’ve built such a store, and ‘Fortnite’ has brought in a huge audience of PC gamers, we’re working to open it up to all developers.”



Epic Games’ 12% cut of sales will replace the engine royalties the company usually collects on games made with its Unreal Engine for any revenue generated through the store. By comparison, Valve’s massive Steam store takes 20 to 30 percent of game revenue. The Epic Games Store, which is open to games developed on any game engine, will be accessible both through the Epic Games launch and on a dedicated website. A user will need to install the Epic Games launcher to download and update games purchased through the store.

The launch of the Epic Games Store puts it in competition with the likes of Valve’s Steam Store and the Microsoft Windows Store. Epic is also just the latest company to expand its online footprint — in this case a game launcher — into a store. Activision Blizzard, Discord, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft all have game stores tied to game launchers.

What do you think about? Can they win against Steam?

[Ordnas]

I don't quite understand, it can sell only games made with Unreal Engine?

[ProgramGamer]

No, it sells any game made with any engine, but if you sell it through the epic store, you don’t have to pay license fees for unreal engine.

[Pfotegeist]

Not enough info. I can't find more info. If they change their mind I guess we'll be losing out. Nay. They have to make this store for the good of bunnies

curators.

And other things hay, and competitive business.

[-Ross]

I think it's cool that they're giving a larger revenue percentage to developers, but other than that, who cares? Woo, yet another storefront to put games on! And this is coming pretty soon after Kongregate and Discord opened their own stores. There will be the usual mad scramble to have one of the first games on the store to capitalize on the fresh publicity, which will fade away in a couple months to a year, tops.

Revenue Splits:

• Steam: 70/30
• Humble: 75/15/10 (dev, humble, charity) [Link]
• Epic Store: 88/12
• Itch: 90/10 (up to 100/0...)

Obviously, everyone should just use Itch (Or their own website). Itch gives the best pay split, and as far as I can tell, has by far the best developer-friendly features, and is constantly working to improve them. (It's hard to tell about other stores' dev features, since the contracts and stuff are generally confidential.) But then again, Itch has a weird name, almost zero publicity, and gamers just want to use Steam.

It's completely stupid to think that a storefront by itself will give your game enough publicity to succeed. Steam is by far the largest and even it doesn't do that. Not even close. It wasn't even close before Steam Direct existed. Publishers are the ones who should be helping you with marketing, but regardless, in the end it's entirely your own responsibility to market your game. Steam does seem to give you quite a bit of help, but overall I don't think which storefront(s) you use matters all that much. There have been games that were successful without using an external storefront at all. Real fans will follow you around.

"win" against Steam? What childish nonsense is this? Besides, Epic is around twice the size of Valve, and they are owned by Tencent, a "Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate". So if anyone's the "big, evil, corporate bully", it's them. [/list]

[Cobralad]

itch is bullshit for bay area hipsters. it only has 2 payment options that wont work in all countries not to mention store usability issues. Yo need 20 mbit internet and 1500$ computer to navigate it without desktop framerate dropping and page going dead from 16mb gif tumbnails. Also you sure need to know english because language options are not on first page like in all stores.
All that to play some uwu visual novels and unfinished pico-shite games thatl show up in every tag.
Galyonkin just said that epic store wont have forums to avoid "toxicity" and wont let AO games, so its also an ivory tower for a bunch of american vidiots.
Steam and Gog did so much to get obscure payment options and languages and theyll never get credit for it because people only write some ass-bullshit about hiring mods and banning illegal trolls.

[ProgramGamer]

You're raising a few good points, but maybe consider being a bit less vulgar dude?

Anyway, the fact that itch doesn't support a wide array of payment options is unfortunate, but I don't know that the devs would have the time or resources to cover as many as Steam or GOG. I also don't buy your complaint about language settings because the "settings" button is annotated with a gear, which by now is pretty much standard for meaning "options menu" and the very first thing that shows up when you click it are the language options. Plus, itch is community translated, so if it's not available/poorly translated in your language you can actually do something about it.

[Cobralad]

not seeing any gears right now. Can you even see settings if youre not logged in? Are you talking about their app?

update: its in the app that gear button, as opposed to language options right on frontpage in steam and gog
i dont know how to switch language in browser version

[ProgramGamer]

Yeah, you can't change the language on the website.

[Cobralad]

Epic and Itch io pretty much build their marketing anti-steam dogwhistles.
So far all we know about from this page https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/announcing-the-epic-games-store:

All Developers Earn 88%
Developers receive 88% of revenue. There are no tiers or thresholds. Epic takes 12%. And if you’re using Unreal Engine, Epic will cover the 5% engine royalty for sales on the Epic Games store, out of Epic’s 12%.

i dont give a shit as a player. Also whats your analog for steamworks, workshop and analytics? Is there any? Can it achieve steam usercount to even justify that?

Have a Direct Relationship With Players
People who buy your games automatically subscribe to your newsfeed so you can reach them with game updates and news about upcoming releases. The newsfeed is front-and-center.  You’ll also be able to reach your players through email, if they choose to share it.

I just read it wow fuck lol. Theyre gonna subscribe you to spam, maybe youll get spammed by update news in launcher. There is also no forums.

Connect with Creators
YouTube content creators, Twitch streamers, bloggers, and others are at the leading edge of game discovery. The 10,000-strong Epic Games Support-A-Creator program helps you reach creators, so they can help you reach players. If you opt to participate, creators who refer players to buy your game will receive a share of the revenue that you set (tracked by code or affiliate marketing link). To jumpstart the creator economy, Epic will cover the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first 24 months.

That one pitched by some bro ceo, will be mentioned on game award stage and than forgotten for good.

Developers Control Their Game Pages
As a developer, you control your game page and your newsfeed. There will be no store-placed ads or cross-marketing of competing games on your page, and no paid ads in search results.

No algorythm and similars may be plus for people who dont like spam, all around minus for small devs.

All Engines Are Welcome
The Epic Games store is open to games built with any engine, and the first releases span Unreal, Unity and internal engines.

ok

When You Succeed, We Succeed
We’ve built this store and its economic model so that Epic’s interests are aligned with your interests.  Because of the high volume of Fortnite transactions, we can process store payments, serve bandwidth, and support customers very efficiently. From Epic’s 12% store fee, we’ll have a profitable business we’ll grow and reinvest in for years to come!

"Enlist to Epic store. Fortnite."

Fortnite failed the way it was intended and developed for 6 years, so did paragon and ut2014.
Entire thing reads like juicero pitch. Their messaging aims at Twitter bizdevs and people who are frustrated with steam. cliffyb will go on games award stage and announc bulletstorm 2, new unreal or jazz jackrabit and that's how you win gamers.

[ProgramGamer]

You're very fun.

Anyway, they're obviously banking on the revenue split to attract people, and I'm pretty sure that announcement was written quickly as a response to Steam's price cut to the rich thing, so I wouldn't hold it to scrutiny that hard. The last point you quoted there is actually just them stating that they have the infrastructure to process a lot of people and payment options, which was actually a complaint you had with itch.

[Oroboros]

I think some more high profile competition will be quite welcome in the current marketplace. There have been many smaller competitors popped up, but someone like Epic will definitely be able to put some pressure on Steam to make changes for the better.

I think having a curated store is a welcome return and will ensure better sales as opposed to worrying about drowning under shovelware. Look forward to seeing how this grows.

[woodsmoke]

Epic fail or Epic win? Time will tell.

[-Ross]

@Cobralad Hahaha. I'm a New England hipster american idiot. Hey, don't get me wrong. I completely agree that the only advantages of this Epic store are the better revenue split and the fact that it's not Steam. I was just saying that, on both of those points, Itch is better. Steam still has way more to offer than any other storefront, especially from the customers' side. That auto-subscribe "feature" that Epic is advertising sounds pretty awful. Their pitch is 100% aimed at developers, since they're the people who decide where to sell their games. They have no reason to care about gamers at this point, especially if they think they can capture a reasonable percent of their Fortnite players.

[Cobralad]

They have no reason to care about gamers at this point, especially if they think they can capture a reasonable percent of their Fortnite players.

Bauer has no reason to care about patients at this point, especially if they think they can capture a reasonable percent of their Oxycodon addicts.

[Devilkay]

the website is out. https://www.epicgames.com/store/

[airman4]

the website is out. https://www.epicgames.com/store/

Love the art of Hades man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Superb Joe]

honestly even though pigscene was a joke the uberisation of indie games makes me sad

[airman4]

uberisation ?

[Superb Joe]

the process of everything becoming uber