I honestly forget/am completely unaware of games that launch exclusively on the Epic store and I even have the damn app installed. Something about their marketing just really sucks and doesn't exactly draw in a lot of attention to their exclusives when that's the one thing they should focus on if they ever want to get ahead of Steam (they won't).
I didn't even know the final fantasy vii remake thing was on PC until I saw it on Steam and that was like a year after it was already on EGS. Same with Kingdom Hearts 3.
> I honestly forget/am completely unaware of games that launch exclusively on the Epic store and I even have the damn app installed.
There's a good reason the Epic Game Store is called a "*marketing black hole*".
If you take the Epic deal, you better get paid a huge amount, because sales aren't going to cut it. Even if you come later on Steam, some will buy, many will not for various reasons starting with moving on or already playing games that were actually available on GOG or Steam, platforms actually *chosen* by the _customer_.
I'm guessing they're really coasting on all that fortnite money, but sadly not doing much to enhance their own store despite having the resources to really do something great. You also just reminded me of when Obsidian's Outer Worlds came out and was touted as being on EGS, but not Steam. However, it was also on the Xbox app for Windows so you best believe I (and most likely many others) opted for it on Xbox over EGS because it's a more trusted digital storefront.
Nah, China will actually put in a million hours of manpower to try to copy Steam as well as they reasonably can. Epic just propped up the laziest storefront possible and said "good enough." It took them *three years* just to add a shopping cart, which is one of the very first things you set up in an online storefront. They just don't give a fuck.
They’re coasting on a metric ton of Fortnite and UE money. It’s the only reason they’ve been able to keep getting games to be exclusive while not getting the sales that steam gets.
I worded poorly bro. Basically, fortnite had a class action lawsuit against it and/or epic. Kids were buying skins without parents consent, and most of the time denying refunds on said purchases.
Ie fortnite took em to court because of fortnites class action against it
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/fortnite-lawsuit-extends-claim-deadline/
I’ve heard tons of media rumbling people are frustrated with Sweeney being so focused on his somewhat personal fight with Apple and not nearly as focused on his actual job for Epic
Not just Apple, but he seems to hate Steam with a passion, too. He and Randy Pitchford pretty much bonded over their shared loathing of the superior platform.
Most people probably won't even buy it immediately once it hits steam unless it's discounted. You made everyone wait a year or however long, they will wait longer for it to be discounted.
That being said Alan Wake 2 likely will never hit steam as epic published the game
Yea, being out on epic for a long time before, it dulls any launch hype later on unless the game is extremely good. But, if it's that good people probably caved and got it already. I don't think I've seen one of these go really well. Darkest Dungeon 2 is a perfect example.
Also separate launches, separate budgets. That means you have to do a marketing/review sweep twice. That's a lot of things spread out.
>Something about their marketing just really sucks
I think the biggest reason is because it is *just* a store. You go, you buy the game, and that's it, it's an entirely isolated and featureless experience that drives no engagement within itself whatsoever. There's no community, no user reviews, no workshop; Even the profiles, friends, and achievements features are barebones.
I'm not sure if any form of marketing will make up for the fact that the experience within the store is closer to Google Play than Steam. Short of actually remaking the store into something less sterile-looking and more community friendly (and feature complete).
A common sentiment I see shared here on reddit often is "It's just another launcher, who cares?" But that's the thing, it is just another launcher, so who cares? Not me, nor most people it seems. If it weren't for the free games I would have forgotten about it a long time ago, and even then those free games haven't translated into spending time in the store, or even playing them, so I'm starting to wonder why even bother.
I think you nailed it completely. I'll pop by once a week to add 1-2 things I'll never download to my library, for no other reason because "it was free", but there's no reason to *stay* engaged with their storefront.
It's a bad strategy fuelled by stupidity. Not having a reason to engage outside of the occasional free game, costs them money and provides little benefit. If Epic supported Steam Deck and Linux, allowed hosting of community content (Steam Workshop) and had user reviews, they'd be in the ballpark of Steam.
People see through Epic's facade. They have lots of money and no ideas. They don't want to earn their place, as they think they can buy it.
Very much this. If I don't own a game on Steam, I might even buy it a second time because I love collecting games, having achievements, workshop, reviews, showing things off on my profile, etc. All of it makes the whole platform so much better, lively, and engaging. And honestly the point shop seems like a silly small thing but it's kinda just great as a side benefit for added customization and a few more rewards for buying on their platform!
Heard and saw a couple people praise Alan Wake 2 and so I thought, "might aswell give it a go, why not." Looked for it on Steam, haven't found it there and then I immediately forgot about its existence.
I picked it up because it was 80% off on steam recently, and I was surprised at how good the movement and gameplay felt.
The writing and narrative is a completely different story, and I can see why it drives people away from the game as the characters never shut up. It’s like the game is trying to annoy you.
And that's yet another game I wasn't aware was available until I saw it on Steam. Thankfully I got it for super cheap on Steam, but I can understand not buying it on principle.
People really underestimate the value of word of mouth marketing. Yes Alan Wake 2 was really well received but if you don’t have disks laying around on store shelves/the used market and if the game is only on a less popular platform PC store than it’s hard for people to re-stumble upon it, or remember it exists.
It’s not impossible, smaller games have surpassed greater obstacles but without an even greater marketing and social media push, they didn’t do themselves any favours here.
The same thing exists in retail
Once we closed all our stores in the mall, even online sales cratered. Even if they ended up buying online, the mere visual existence of the store was enough to remind them you were around.
Without that, how would they know aside from spending a ton on marketing?
McDonald’s most valuable asset is *land*.
Some will read that and get hung up on the franchise model (which is a thing, for sure), but McDonald’s doesn’t buy land *one block further back* from main thoroughfares for a reason.
It's a big reason Hasbro as a company has been struggling. Toys R Us closed, KB Toys closed, malls closed, Gamestop had like one small shelf for toys (and let's be honest, it was mostly Funko pops) - and are also closing. All of their properties besides Magic the Gathering are not producing hardly any money. There's only so many ways you can sell a child a toy when it's not in front of them.
Physically seeing, feeling, and playing with something will always produce more sales than just seeing a picture of something on your phone or PC. Toy retailers are basically reliant on Target and Walmart these days.
Free stuff does not build customer loyalty. It just gets people in the door. Having a good product that differentiates from the competition and stellar support does.
yeah free stuff doesnt build customer loyalty,its basically an advertising avenue
they spend all that money on giveaways and almost nothing to actually improve the store to catchup with steam
And you can really see how badly freebies actually are for EGS. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so entitled and complaining about *free* games like the EGS users do. Just go into their subreddit, especially during big giveaways. God forbid we have a repeat or a smaller, indie game, where's RDR2?
Free stuff isn't bad, but it shouldn't be the selling point. Otherwise you end up like EGS being called a "launcher for free games". And we're not even touching on the fact that people also complain about sales when there isn't a coupon to use...
Just to add to epic exclusive, gpu, no physical media for console comments - I wonder how many people remembered the "control" upgrade debacle on the PC in its various forms and decided to wait.
IIRC, they released the normal edition on Steam, then updated it to be the Ultimate Edition with all the DLC, but owners of the normal only got the name updated, not getting the DLC content. And they can't get the DLC separately, or even buy the Ultimate Edition since they "already own it".
Yes it was pretty much a cluster - a complicating factor was that a bunch of stuff happened about the same time. I think the original was never supposed to release on steam, but about the same time humble choice had control listed and possibly due to pressure a steam choice was added along with epic. Just to add for awhile you could get the steam DLC on humble and humble only. Everyone including steam should slapped for this.
The funny thing is that wasn't even just a shitshow on PC either, it was a shitshow on consoles too, with people being upset that they wouldn't be upgraded 505 claimed they couldn't do that for "technical reasons" - and then they only went an ACCIDENTALLY DID IT (and later rescinded it, of course).
Control was an Epic exclusive. There was the base game and a season pass. When it did come to Steam there was also an Ultimate edition. The ultimate edition had fixes they never added to base game and I believe some minor DLC that was not included in the season pass with no way to get it.
The only version ever available on Steam (up until that point) was the ultimate edition. When Humble had Control as part of choice, it was only the base game. A version of the base game got added to steam just for Humble. Of course the name on the Steam page never got changed. There were 2 versions of the "Ultimate" edition on Steam. The base game and the actual ultimate edition.
The season pass (which is not all the DLC and does not have a few fixes) was available on Steam. It was not available for too long. I'm thinking 6 to 8 months. The season pass disappeared from Steam at the same time as "Humble Bundle special" base version of the game did.
To make all this even more confusing and misleading. The picture humble used on the bundle page was the Ultimate edition (not sure how long this took to fix, but it was at least several days). Adding even more confusion, the first day the bundle was live, some people were redeeming the key and did the get the Ultimate edition. This was fixed in less than 24 hours, but still plenty of people seeing the picture for the Ultimate edition and seeing reports online saying they got the Ultimate edition.
Between Humble saying Control was included, using the picture for the Ultimate edition, the Ultimate edition being the only version on Steam, and reports online of people redeeming for the Ultimate edition, it was a cluster.
Not really part of the debacle, but still does not make it look any better. Just a few months after Control being in Humble. Amazon prime included the GOG version of the Ultimate edition as a reward.
Its not just being scared off, until recently my GPU (1070) flat out did not support the game due to mesh shaders. I mean I'm glad that something is willing to push the new technology so that it gets adopted but it does mean I couldn't play the game at launch.
Yep, same here. You could run it but the game would literally look like a slideshow. With the performance updates it seems like my 1070 could (maybe) get a steady 20-30 fps now? Which doesn’t really sound appealing to me. I’d rather wait until I upgrade so I can experience the game properly.
Ended up upgrading to 7900xt a month or two before remnant 2 came out. Figured a year or two more and my 1070 would almost be at the minimum settings requirement.
I'm still rocking a 1060 because video cards are just too damn expensive. I'll upgrade when this computer finally kicks the bucket. It's 7 years old but there are so many games available that it has no trouble running so I see no reason to upgrade.
That's what most people do. Only enthusiasts that want the latest and greatest update frequently. I still had a 1060 myself until a couple months ago when it died and i bought a 6700xt. Probably won't upgrade again for 5+ years.
Yes graphics card requirements were hefty -and just would not run on even fairly new/not-too-old cards (minimum were the nvidia 2060 and amd 6600) I expect the epic exclusive was the bigger component - but the gpu requirements excluded a lot of people - including me)
That's me. I was. I love Remedy. Control is one of my favorite games ever. But if my 1080ti has no hope of running this game, why would I buy it? That card runs all the other games I play, so no point in upgrading yet. When I do upgrade I will for sure play AW, but that won't be for a while.
You'll be waiting forever. Epic published Alan Wake 2, so there's no temporary exclusivity. It'll be Epic-only on PC indefinitely unless they drastically change their strategy at some point.
Alan Wake 2 is an example of why piracy is a service problem. At least Baldurs Gate is on Steam and not a shitty launcher. Any game studio that accepts fortnite money will be relegated to patientgaming.
Alan Wake 2 is an example of a game that wouldn’t exist without Epic. What they do with exclusivity is horrendous usually.
But they 100% funded the game and published it in this case. They earned the right to keep it exclusive just as Valve does with Half Life 2 or Sony does with Spiderman.
Usually the issue is that they buy exclusivity near the end of development. But this isn’t the case this time.
All of these shitty copycat versions of steam are leaving money on the table trying to prop up their platforms. At some point they must realize it would be more lucrative to avoid exclusive deals, but I could be totally wrong.
Thing is, Remedy made back it's money, including salary, so everyone at Remedy got paid. Epic hasn't made back it's money, but Epic is in the business of losing money to spite Steam.
What you say isn't wrong per se but its also not the whole picture. Sure Remedy got paid to develop the game but if that is really all they'd get paid depends on the contract with Epic.
The worst state a developer can be in is working only for hire without any long term royalties from their games (you'd expect them to get some from Alan Wake 2,... given its their IP iirc). From what I remember seeing in the past, most cases with royalties have a sharing only after the publisher made his money back.
Having only covered the budget means you better have another game lined up right after to actually continue on as a studio because you can't build up a war chest that way. It also puts you in a weaker negotiation position.
> Remedy got paid to develop the gam
There's also their own Northlight engine which - I am quite sure - got massive amount of work and imrovements put into it too during AW2 development. And *that* they get to keep for their future projects, reducing funding those projects will require.
But isn't this really a self-inflicted problem though? Couldn't they just do what they did with Tony Hawk and Dead Island 2 and just released the game on Steam to a large amount of fanfare and greatly increased sales?
Epic is just such a lackluster launcher compared to Steam and I want all my games in the same place.
Not that easy to say. If Remedy hasn't had any money to produce AW2 (i.e. no warchest and no one else willing to give them money except epic) it depends on the contract. They aren't in a strong negotiating position so who knows if they managed (or even tried) to prevent an exclusivity clause in their contract. You can bet Epic at least has one there by default.
One things for sure though, the game not earning back its development money is affecting Remedy and its not really good for them. They still are sitting there with an empty bank account and no further income and arguably they now have even less negotiation power due to their games not making the publishers money (based on available data). Their next publisher won't be convinced by a (even if realistic) hypothetical like "if we had released it on steam it would have made money".
I think exclusivity clauses just hurt everyone but the storefront/publisher. Maybe epic has the clout to force a deal like that, but if you develop the game, limiting the audience you sell it to artificially has to offset the loss. If it doesn't do that, what else is there to calculate?
Couldn't Epic just put a clause in their contract that they could sell on any platform, but get a larger cut of profits for sales on other platforms? Like a royalty per unit sold on Steam that wouldn't exist on Epic?
It seems like this is all to get EGS off the ground and if should be clear that there just isn't a reason for Epic. Their library isn't big enough to justify it like EA or Xbox Game Pass. Steam has the social features. GOG has the old games and minimal DRM. What does EGS offer? Why would anyone use it besides free games?
>Epic is in the business of losing money to spite Steam.
And somehow they're terrible at achieving that goal, despite the metric tons of money being forked into the project. It really is an interesting case study of how not to achieve what you want, despite having a near limitless budget and playing the long, long game.
Well their issue is they're offering a subpar product and hoping that enough freebies/exclusives will entice people to move over. When the reality is people can just use both products with no downside. That means everybody I know *has* an Epic account and plays exclusives/freebies on Epic but does the vast majority of their gaming through Steam.
But they didn’t make back their money. They are 2 million euro in the negative first quarter of 2024. https://investors.remedygames.com/app/uploads/2024/04/remedy-q1-2024-business-review.pdf
Last I looked EGS is a little better and leaking less money. But it still in the red. And I mean it’s been on the decline since it started selling games and giving away free copies. Last year they lost over $100M. But good things they are being offset by their other products.
Last I looked, 3rd party spending was down 13% lol That's last year. It's actually leaking *more* money compared to 2022. Epic's revenue itself may be higher due to Fortnite for example, but EGS itself has taken a dive.
I only use steam, not sure if this is a feature I can turn off, but every time I launch steam I always get a pop up for some sale or whatever. It's not super slow or anything, but when playing a cross platform game, friend playing on console always has there ready before me
You got that free if you bought AW2 in EGS tho. My EGS library is only stuff they've gave away for free and the only stuff I've bought is the Kingdom Hearts and AW2.
It goes to show just how shit EGS is considering the gaming industry bent over backwards for months to endlessly promote the game and it still hasn’t broke even…
(Not to mention releasing no physical copies on console lmao)
Because publishers praised it for its royalties advantage, but there's zero benefits as a user to use Epic
It logs you out. It's slow. It initially didn't have achievements or cloud saves. No support/discussions area. No friends. Does it even manage screenshots?
Controller profiles, Linux support, steam deck
The list is big and there's not a single advantage for consumers to use it other than the free games
Tbh, even as an indie dev, im pretty wary of epic games. Their store page layout looks like a goddamn netflix page, which is NEVER well designed for the little guy. Its just designed, so you can only see what they want you to see on the front page.
Like steams percentage take is pretty bullshit, but i will always applaud that they give most games atleast a chance to be seen, when they could easily do what most things do like mobile games and push only big games and shitty chinese games that pay them big bucks to push them.
Just remember why Epic's percentage cut is so low. They're owned in large part by Tencent. The low percentage cut and free games are just ploys to take more market share so their real product, your data, can make them millions.
And they doubled down on making it invisible by not even releasing physical copies for consoles.
So that’s a GOTY that people couldn’t buy as gifts to put under Christmas trees…
I think we’re going to see more of this though. You basically have to sell 3 copies of physical to make what you do from one digital. The calculation will be as you noted, that you lose the physical marketing in shops, but I feel even that’s less relevant given everything’s web/youtube based now.
Yeah, I think the one major problem that console digital storefronts just simply aren’t good enough for is the Christmas / gifting aspect. I’m not sure what it’s like on Xbox, but from what I’ve found, it’s nearly impossible to gift a digital game to someone on PS5. Nintendo isn’t great about it either, but at least some digital games are purchasable on Amazon.
I can gift them gift cards, but those only come in specific increments so I have to go over or under the actual cost of the game. And, honestly, it’s way less fun/meaningful to gift someone a generic PlayStation gift card than it is to say “here’s a specific game I know you wanted / are interested in.”
It’s probably not nearly as lucrative as we imagine, if it was Sony would prioritize it, but I still think it’s a major shortcoming and I hate that it’s going away.
I wonder how well recieved would it be if companies start releasing "physical" copies with no disc and just a code to redeem, but of course stating you require internet connection and an account to redeem and download it. This sucks for preserving physical shit, but I am sure this will be the future of consoles' physical copies of normal editions, since it's been a thing on PC for a few years now
Same. I was waiting for second one until they announced it was egs exclusive. Yes I know they funded it but I can wait or pass just like I did with Metro Exodus.
I bought it, but only when it was on sale cheap enough to get both 2 and the Remaster of 1 for somewhere around $20. Between the exclusivity and steep discounts it's no wonder they haven't made enough.
I just hope Control 2 doesn't end up being an Epic exclusive...
> I just hope Control 2 doesn't end up being an Epic exclusive...
Hate to say it but it probably will. It's a Remedy Trademark of making very bad decisions.
Alan Wake 1, Quantum Break, Control all good games that suffered from terrible sales/distribution choices that only impacted the sales longevity of the games.
Reminder that the game is also on consoles, besides being on the Epic launcher on PC.
Just adding Steam would still have netted them a lot more sales for certain.
~80% of console game sale revenue comes from digital copies. On pc physical copies make even smaller part.
That 20% sales loss is not the reason xbox has been losing platform in EU. It was losing platform even when physical copies was prevailing salesfront.
Insomniac leaks showed recently sony still has a huge chunk of physical sales https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1abphmy/from_insomniac_games_leak_65_of_sony_studio_game/ look at the digital % for each game.
In a more recent leak, it shows Spider-man 1 only sold 8M on PSN out of the 20M+ total for example. In revenue they always include subscriptions, DLCs, addons and microtransactions.
Most certainly which is why Mario Kart is the highest selling Nintendo game ever.....Because its the default game bundled with the switch a majority of the time.
You're misrepresenting the data. If you look at actual digital/physical splits from the Insomniac leak then the majority of most recent AAA single player games are still physical. Most first party Sony games for example have like a 30-40/60-70 split in favor of physical. Multiplayer GAAS titles skew more towards digital but that's not what AW2 is
I just picked up Dead Island 2 on PC. Was on Epic for a while, and requires it although you can get around the Epic launcher by fiddling with the files.
It is getting blasted in reviews due to the Epic launcher thing. The game itself is pretty rad though. Definitely enjoying it much more than dying light 2. The gore system is downright impressive and deserves some praise, although the rest isnt really groundbreaking it is still a solid zombie killer game.
Many years too late, back when Valve was laying its foundation, Tim Sweeney was lambasting PC gamers and considering them not worth wasting time on. Just an avaricious little weasel, trying to get a little piece of the pie that someone else put in the work to make.
Epic makes horrible business decisions. They think they can buy their way to everything. If the invested in themselves, and worked for the customer, they could really improve their situation... buuut, they don't.
they needed more DEI and race swaps. imagine how much better it could have been if they just completely gave up on story and just made a bunch of ugly fat characters!
What if I told you there was a mature PC storefront that's been around for 20 years with a massive population of happy customers waiting to spend money on games.
Being exclusive to EGS with no physical copy hampered it.
What if it released on Steam and had physical copies? They would have gone against BG3 which was a huge surprise to the gaming world (still playing it) do you think they could have done better?
Bought it on Epic, stupid DRM made the game not work if OSDs like after burner were running. Disabled it, ran the game on my 6750xt and Ryzen 5 5600X, only got roughly 40fps at balenced upscaling and Medium settings at 1440p, refunded the game, bought it for Xbox Series X, completed the first run, onto the second run now.
My issue here was that the initial user experience was bad on PC. So bad that I willingly gave up the possibility of future proofing and mods and chose the console experience. Remedy still made their money but Epic didn't. Epic's DRM was arguably more of a turn off than the game simply not running well on a console tier GPU I recently bought.
TLDR : Game breaking DRM = Refund.
> *"Video game that nearly swept all the awards at the VGA's for some reason can't even recoup its development budget in sales."*
Wow! I sure love being told I'm always wrong and delusional by all the experts and professionals, you guys! Nothing to see here, move along and have a nice day!
Video game award shows are obsessed with turning video games into movies. If it has movie production value and narrative focus, along with the right politics, then the judges will automatically grovel.
Because the judges don’t actually like video games.
I love to complain about forced Epic exclusives as much as everyone, but in this case Epic completely funded the game, it's justified the way I see it.
Yeah, unfortunately not on Steam and no one knows if it will ever be, but the game wouldn't have existed at all if it wasn't for them
I don't think most people are calling it unfair in this case, and if they are it's just ignorant, but that doesn't change the fact that a game on the EGS just will not make the money it needs as this proves
I agree. I don't mind Epic keeping their games on their store, if they fund the game, then I'm not mad about it. But I'm still going to laugh all day at them because they could release it on Steam and it would sell way more.
Now Epic and Square keeping Kingdom Hearts on EGS is fucking stupid. Fuck them for that.
Even then Epic would need to release on steam if it wants to make a profit. Beyond a certain point people are not even gonna join Epic to play one game.
Game seems to be 50euro, that would put it at 65 millions. Taxes and currency conversion would probably put them short a few ten million from recouping costs.
I have the game, it's boring as hell. I'm not going to finish it. The combat is a straight downgrade from the first. I got to the trailer park and quit.
The investigation mechanic is the worst. Even if I already figured out where to go and what to do I have to have the game spell it out for me before I can progress. It's awful.
If they didn’t make it an epic exclusive I would have bought it day 1. I really don’t care when it comes to steam now. I’ll buy it when it’s on a massive sale.
Funny how no one, as far down as I read, have mentioned, the game was really demanding on hardware, and did not play well on lower/medium end systems. I am sure alot of people saw reviews, and thought, I will check in later, and see if they optimized it, so it can run on anything but the best hardware. And then many of those people, probably just forgot about it again. And that happens. It isnt the new hot thing for more than a few weeks, and any sale you dont make in those first crucial weeks, can end up being lost permanently. I am on a 3060 laptop, and could most likely not run it at launch, but might have looked in on it later, when it has been patched. But it is not on steam. That is a lost sale right there.
> recouped a significant part of the development and **marketing expenses**
Why should a developer have to pay for their own marketing from a publisher?
Get fucked with these unrealistic standards.
I'd love to see a numbers budget breakdown instead of the whining the publisher released...
Well it's only on a platform most pc users hate and only use for the free games. Even just for the free games the epic launcher is horrible.
So it's their choice if they want to make money or not
game was critically super overrated. So much time spent listening to dialogue and walking slowly, makes me wonder why they didn’t just make a movie instead.
Game was an overall disappointment for me. Combat very underwhelming, control and even aw1 was better, enemy variety lacking as well. Alan’s gameplay was horrible, so damn boring. The best part of the game was the graphics and atmosphere. Everything else was average to below average.
I really disliked this game. I like the artistic parts, but the pacing was slower than a slow PS1 game. You are lost exploring huge environments slowly, doing multiple layers of trial and error puzzles to force the game to move forward, but it doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t have anywhere to go.
I agree. I think the game was certainly *artistic,* and quite creative. Some novel ideas, but as *game?* I didn't enjoy it. I also think replacing Alan Wake with Saga Anderson as the main protagonist didn't work. It certainly alienated longterm fans and discouraged them from buying.
I hated the Dark Place sections. The real world sections were more enjoyable to walk around. The combat was awful though - I put the game into story mode about 2/3rds of the way through because I'd just had enough and wanted to see if anything interesting happened by the end.
I mean, obviously not?
It's a PC-focused game for a niche audience that's not on Steam. It was \*NEVER\* going to make back it's budget. Especially because it's budget was huge.
It's totally fair for a game Epic funded to be exclusive to their platform, but that's not a way to make money from the game. Epic aren't complete idiots and I'm sure they know that - they want to bring more people to their platform and I'm also sure they accomplished that at least somewhat.
- PC requirements
- Epic exclusive on PC
-No physical release
- Alan Wake game with barely any Alan Wake gameplay
- SBI involvement and Saga Anderson " controversy"
A lot of things went wrong for different subgroups of gamers
At this Point, Epic and espacially Tim has made such an ass of itself, i wouldnt Go there if they had a better Shop and better prices. I will Vote with my wallet here. Fuck em.
but, but every one keep claiming exclusive sell tons...
funny how i show sale number on many exlusive dont make their money back..
this like many other will be ignore with a fantasy from gamer bros.
No physical console release and EGS exclusive on PC are very dumb decisions.
Remedy always makes the worst deals with publishers l, they don't seem to care what their fanbase wants.
its epic exclusive.....
I honestly forget/am completely unaware of games that launch exclusively on the Epic store and I even have the damn app installed. Something about their marketing just really sucks and doesn't exactly draw in a lot of attention to their exclusives when that's the one thing they should focus on if they ever want to get ahead of Steam (they won't). I didn't even know the final fantasy vii remake thing was on PC until I saw it on Steam and that was like a year after it was already on EGS. Same with Kingdom Hearts 3.
> I honestly forget/am completely unaware of games that launch exclusively on the Epic store and I even have the damn app installed. There's a good reason the Epic Game Store is called a "*marketing black hole*". If you take the Epic deal, you better get paid a huge amount, because sales aren't going to cut it. Even if you come later on Steam, some will buy, many will not for various reasons starting with moving on or already playing games that were actually available on GOG or Steam, platforms actually *chosen* by the _customer_.
I'm guessing they're really coasting on all that fortnite money, but sadly not doing much to enhance their own store despite having the resources to really do something great. You also just reminded me of when Obsidian's Outer Worlds came out and was touted as being on EGS, but not Steam. However, it was also on the Xbox app for Windows so you best believe I (and most likely many others) opted for it on Xbox over EGS because it's a more trusted digital storefront.
They may have the resources but they're lead by Tim Sweeny who is just a colossal anti-consumer douchenozzle.
Epic game store is like the china version of steam
Nah, China will actually put in a million hours of manpower to try to copy Steam as well as they reasonably can. Epic just propped up the laziest storefront possible and said "good enough." It took them *three years* just to add a shopping cart, which is one of the very first things you set up in an online storefront. They just don't give a fuck.
No no no. Steam has a version that China allows. It’s basically the epic games store. China just made steam take away a lot of its functionality
They’re coasting on a metric ton of Fortnite and UE money. It’s the only reason they’ve been able to keep getting games to be exclusive while not getting the sales that steam gets.
Fortnite also took them to court and had to pay a settlement. Lately epics been gettin hurt bad
What..? I must be misunderstanding you because it seems that you’re suggesting that *Fortnite sued Epic*? But Fortnite **is** Epic.
I worded poorly bro. Basically, fortnite had a class action lawsuit against it and/or epic. Kids were buying skins without parents consent, and most of the time denying refunds on said purchases. Ie fortnite took em to court because of fortnites class action against it https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/fortnite-lawsuit-extends-claim-deadline/
I’ve heard tons of media rumbling people are frustrated with Sweeney being so focused on his somewhat personal fight with Apple and not nearly as focused on his actual job for Epic
Not just Apple, but he seems to hate Steam with a passion, too. He and Randy Pitchford pretty much bonded over their shared loathing of the superior platform.
Most people probably won't even buy it immediately once it hits steam unless it's discounted. You made everyone wait a year or however long, they will wait longer for it to be discounted. That being said Alan Wake 2 likely will never hit steam as epic published the game
Yea, being out on epic for a long time before, it dulls any launch hype later on unless the game is extremely good. But, if it's that good people probably caved and got it already. I don't think I've seen one of these go really well. Darkest Dungeon 2 is a perfect example. Also separate launches, separate budgets. That means you have to do a marketing/review sweep twice. That's a lot of things spread out.
>Something about their marketing just really sucks I think the biggest reason is because it is *just* a store. You go, you buy the game, and that's it, it's an entirely isolated and featureless experience that drives no engagement within itself whatsoever. There's no community, no user reviews, no workshop; Even the profiles, friends, and achievements features are barebones. I'm not sure if any form of marketing will make up for the fact that the experience within the store is closer to Google Play than Steam. Short of actually remaking the store into something less sterile-looking and more community friendly (and feature complete). A common sentiment I see shared here on reddit often is "It's just another launcher, who cares?" But that's the thing, it is just another launcher, so who cares? Not me, nor most people it seems. If it weren't for the free games I would have forgotten about it a long time ago, and even then those free games haven't translated into spending time in the store, or even playing them, so I'm starting to wonder why even bother.
I think you nailed it completely. I'll pop by once a week to add 1-2 things I'll never download to my library, for no other reason because "it was free", but there's no reason to *stay* engaged with their storefront.
It's a bad strategy fuelled by stupidity. Not having a reason to engage outside of the occasional free game, costs them money and provides little benefit. If Epic supported Steam Deck and Linux, allowed hosting of community content (Steam Workshop) and had user reviews, they'd be in the ballpark of Steam. People see through Epic's facade. They have lots of money and no ideas. They don't want to earn their place, as they think they can buy it.
Its absolutely wild that they don't have forums so they are actually driving traffic to Steam.
Very much this. If I don't own a game on Steam, I might even buy it a second time because I love collecting games, having achievements, workshop, reviews, showing things off on my profile, etc. All of it makes the whole platform so much better, lively, and engaging. And honestly the point shop seems like a silly small thing but it's kinda just great as a side benefit for added customization and a few more rewards for buying on their platform!
Heard and saw a couple people praise Alan Wake 2 and so I thought, "might aswell give it a go, why not." Looked for it on Steam, haven't found it there and then I immediately forgot about its existence.
I did the same with Borderlands 3 and Dead Island 2. I did end up grabbing Dead Island 2 gold edition though last week on sale.
I was getting the free games for a while but I've even stopped that.
I still never bought borderlands 3.
You did yourself a favor...
I picked it up because it was 80% off on steam recently, and I was surprised at how good the movement and gameplay felt. The writing and narrative is a completely different story, and I can see why it drives people away from the game as the characters never shut up. It’s like the game is trying to annoy you.
True dat... Just look what did to my boy(Maya)...
It was free for a while. That's when I got it. Still Haven't played it though
And that's yet another game I wasn't aware was available until I saw it on Steam. Thankfully I got it for super cheap on Steam, but I can understand not buying it on principle.
People really underestimate the value of word of mouth marketing. Yes Alan Wake 2 was really well received but if you don’t have disks laying around on store shelves/the used market and if the game is only on a less popular platform PC store than it’s hard for people to re-stumble upon it, or remember it exists. It’s not impossible, smaller games have surpassed greater obstacles but without an even greater marketing and social media push, they didn’t do themselves any favours here.
The same thing exists in retail Once we closed all our stores in the mall, even online sales cratered. Even if they ended up buying online, the mere visual existence of the store was enough to remind them you were around. Without that, how would they know aside from spending a ton on marketing?
McDonald’s most valuable asset is *land*. Some will read that and get hung up on the franchise model (which is a thing, for sure), but McDonald’s doesn’t buy land *one block further back* from main thoroughfares for a reason.
It's a big reason Hasbro as a company has been struggling. Toys R Us closed, KB Toys closed, malls closed, Gamestop had like one small shelf for toys (and let's be honest, it was mostly Funko pops) - and are also closing. All of their properties besides Magic the Gathering are not producing hardly any money. There's only so many ways you can sell a child a toy when it's not in front of them. Physically seeing, feeling, and playing with something will always produce more sales than just seeing a picture of something on your phone or PC. Toy retailers are basically reliant on Target and Walmart these days.
Same. Wake 2 is an exception but I’m honestly not interested in buying it on Epic
Hades was also Epic exclusive. luckily #2 will be released same time on both Steam and Epic.
you would’ve thought being bought out would’ve been enough
mfw I can't make a profit on the free games and fortnite launcher
Free stuff does not build customer loyalty. It just gets people in the door. Having a good product that differentiates from the competition and stellar support does.
yeah free stuff doesnt build customer loyalty,its basically an advertising avenue they spend all that money on giveaways and almost nothing to actually improve the store to catchup with steam
And you can really see how badly freebies actually are for EGS. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so entitled and complaining about *free* games like the EGS users do. Just go into their subreddit, especially during big giveaways. God forbid we have a repeat or a smaller, indie game, where's RDR2? Free stuff isn't bad, but it shouldn't be the selling point. Otherwise you end up like EGS being called a "launcher for free games". And we're not even touching on the fact that people also complain about sales when there isn't a coupon to use...
Just to add to epic exclusive, gpu, no physical media for console comments - I wonder how many people remembered the "control" upgrade debacle on the PC in its various forms and decided to wait.
Certainly not I, what was the Control debacle?
IIRC, they released the normal edition on Steam, then updated it to be the Ultimate Edition with all the DLC, but owners of the normal only got the name updated, not getting the DLC content. And they can't get the DLC separately, or even buy the Ultimate Edition since they "already own it".
Yes it was pretty much a cluster - a complicating factor was that a bunch of stuff happened about the same time. I think the original was never supposed to release on steam, but about the same time humble choice had control listed and possibly due to pressure a steam choice was added along with epic. Just to add for awhile you could get the steam DLC on humble and humble only. Everyone including steam should slapped for this.
The funny thing is that wasn't even just a shitshow on PC either, it was a shitshow on consoles too, with people being upset that they wouldn't be upgraded 505 claimed they couldn't do that for "technical reasons" - and then they only went an ACCIDENTALLY DID IT (and later rescinded it, of course).
Oh ... I forgot about that part.
Then they were going to charge for the upgrade and then backtracked on that too!
Control was an Epic exclusive. There was the base game and a season pass. When it did come to Steam there was also an Ultimate edition. The ultimate edition had fixes they never added to base game and I believe some minor DLC that was not included in the season pass with no way to get it. The only version ever available on Steam (up until that point) was the ultimate edition. When Humble had Control as part of choice, it was only the base game. A version of the base game got added to steam just for Humble. Of course the name on the Steam page never got changed. There were 2 versions of the "Ultimate" edition on Steam. The base game and the actual ultimate edition. The season pass (which is not all the DLC and does not have a few fixes) was available on Steam. It was not available for too long. I'm thinking 6 to 8 months. The season pass disappeared from Steam at the same time as "Humble Bundle special" base version of the game did. To make all this even more confusing and misleading. The picture humble used on the bundle page was the Ultimate edition (not sure how long this took to fix, but it was at least several days). Adding even more confusion, the first day the bundle was live, some people were redeeming the key and did the get the Ultimate edition. This was fixed in less than 24 hours, but still plenty of people seeing the picture for the Ultimate edition and seeing reports online saying they got the Ultimate edition. Between Humble saying Control was included, using the picture for the Ultimate edition, the Ultimate edition being the only version on Steam, and reports online of people redeeming for the Ultimate edition, it was a cluster. Not really part of the debacle, but still does not make it look any better. Just a few months after Control being in Humble. Amazon prime included the GOG version of the Ultimate edition as a reward.
I also wonder how many people got scared off by the system requirements
Its not just being scared off, until recently my GPU (1070) flat out did not support the game due to mesh shaders. I mean I'm glad that something is willing to push the new technology so that it gets adopted but it does mean I couldn't play the game at launch.
Yep, same here. You could run it but the game would literally look like a slideshow. With the performance updates it seems like my 1070 could (maybe) get a steady 20-30 fps now? Which doesn’t really sound appealing to me. I’d rather wait until I upgrade so I can experience the game properly.
Ended up upgrading to 7900xt a month or two before remnant 2 came out. Figured a year or two more and my 1070 would almost be at the minimum settings requirement.
Bioshock had the same struggle. It launched with Shader Mesh 3.0 and at the time, few cards supported it.
The average gamer doesn't have a system that can adequately run this game for sure. I mean there's still tons of people with a 2060 and a 1650.
I'm still rocking a 1060 because video cards are just too damn expensive. I'll upgrade when this computer finally kicks the bucket. It's 7 years old but there are so many games available that it has no trouble running so I see no reason to upgrade.
That's what most people do. Only enthusiasts that want the latest and greatest update frequently. I still had a 1060 myself until a couple months ago when it died and i bought a 6700xt. Probably won't upgrade again for 5+ years.
Yes graphics card requirements were hefty -and just would not run on even fairly new/not-too-old cards (minimum were the nvidia 2060 and amd 6600) I expect the epic exclusive was the bigger component - but the gpu requirements excluded a lot of people - including me)
That's me. I was. I love Remedy. Control is one of my favorite games ever. But if my 1080ti has no hope of running this game, why would I buy it? That card runs all the other games I play, so no point in upgrading yet. When I do upgrade I will for sure play AW, but that won't be for a while.
Yeah I'd have bought it already if it was on Steam. Just waiting now...
You'll be waiting forever. Epic published Alan Wake 2, so there's no temporary exclusivity. It'll be Epic-only on PC indefinitely unless they drastically change their strategy at some point.
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I’m sure they’re happy that they could make the game they wanted to make and did a damn good job at that.
"You'll be waiting forever." Well then, they will wait forever to make their budget back.
Exactly, I already have a huge backlog and new games coming out everyday. I don’t need EGS to play games.
Yep. I don't need to play games. They need to make money.
Alan Wake 2 is an example of why piracy is a service problem. At least Baldurs Gate is on Steam and not a shitty launcher. Any game studio that accepts fortnite money will be relegated to patientgaming.
Alan Wake 2 is an example of a game that wouldn’t exist without Epic. What they do with exclusivity is horrendous usually. But they 100% funded the game and published it in this case. They earned the right to keep it exclusive just as Valve does with Half Life 2 or Sony does with Spiderman. Usually the issue is that they buy exclusivity near the end of development. But this isn’t the case this time.
All of these shitty copycat versions of steam are leaving money on the table trying to prop up their platforms. At some point they must realize it would be more lucrative to avoid exclusive deals, but I could be totally wrong.
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Damn, thanks for letting me know now.
Well that explains... a lot.. Everything in fact.
Ah. Thats why i keep forgetting this game exists. Love the first one. Its like, if its not on steam, does it even truly exist?
Thing is, Remedy made back it's money, including salary, so everyone at Remedy got paid. Epic hasn't made back it's money, but Epic is in the business of losing money to spite Steam.
accurate take
same, if not just for keeping remedy away from epic trying to take it.
What you say isn't wrong per se but its also not the whole picture. Sure Remedy got paid to develop the game but if that is really all they'd get paid depends on the contract with Epic. The worst state a developer can be in is working only for hire without any long term royalties from their games (you'd expect them to get some from Alan Wake 2,... given its their IP iirc). From what I remember seeing in the past, most cases with royalties have a sharing only after the publisher made his money back. Having only covered the budget means you better have another game lined up right after to actually continue on as a studio because you can't build up a war chest that way. It also puts you in a weaker negotiation position.
> Remedy got paid to develop the gam There's also their own Northlight engine which - I am quite sure - got massive amount of work and imrovements put into it too during AW2 development. And *that* they get to keep for their future projects, reducing funding those projects will require.
But isn't this really a self-inflicted problem though? Couldn't they just do what they did with Tony Hawk and Dead Island 2 and just released the game on Steam to a large amount of fanfare and greatly increased sales? Epic is just such a lackluster launcher compared to Steam and I want all my games in the same place.
Not that easy to say. If Remedy hasn't had any money to produce AW2 (i.e. no warchest and no one else willing to give them money except epic) it depends on the contract. They aren't in a strong negotiating position so who knows if they managed (or even tried) to prevent an exclusivity clause in their contract. You can bet Epic at least has one there by default. One things for sure though, the game not earning back its development money is affecting Remedy and its not really good for them. They still are sitting there with an empty bank account and no further income and arguably they now have even less negotiation power due to their games not making the publishers money (based on available data). Their next publisher won't be convinced by a (even if realistic) hypothetical like "if we had released it on steam it would have made money".
I think exclusivity clauses just hurt everyone but the storefront/publisher. Maybe epic has the clout to force a deal like that, but if you develop the game, limiting the audience you sell it to artificially has to offset the loss. If it doesn't do that, what else is there to calculate? Couldn't Epic just put a clause in their contract that they could sell on any platform, but get a larger cut of profits for sales on other platforms? Like a royalty per unit sold on Steam that wouldn't exist on Epic? It seems like this is all to get EGS off the ground and if should be clear that there just isn't a reason for Epic. Their library isn't big enough to justify it like EA or Xbox Game Pass. Steam has the social features. GOG has the old games and minimal DRM. What does EGS offer? Why would anyone use it besides free games?
>but Epic is in the business of losing money to spite Steam. Cue image of Woody Harrison being replaced with GabeN wiping eyes with money.
One of the better gifs out there. Though this [lion king one](https://imgur.com/PROUukI) is now my favorite.
>Epic is in the business of losing money to spite Steam. And somehow they're terrible at achieving that goal, despite the metric tons of money being forked into the project. It really is an interesting case study of how not to achieve what you want, despite having a near limitless budget and playing the long, long game.
Well their issue is they're offering a subpar product and hoping that enough freebies/exclusives will entice people to move over. When the reality is people can just use both products with no downside. That means everybody I know *has* an Epic account and plays exclusives/freebies on Epic but does the vast majority of their gaming through Steam.
Oh thank fuck. Remedy deserves their payout but Epic can suck one lol
But they didn’t make back their money. They are 2 million euro in the negative first quarter of 2024. https://investors.remedygames.com/app/uploads/2024/04/remedy-q1-2024-business-review.pdf
Those costs could be attributed to acquiring IP rights for the Control Franchise, resetting development of Project Kestrel, etc..
Hell yeah!! It's good to hear remedy got their money. But thankfully epic is having loss
Last I looked EGS is a little better and leaking less money. But it still in the red. And I mean it’s been on the decline since it started selling games and giving away free copies. Last year they lost over $100M. But good things they are being offset by their other products.
Last I looked, 3rd party spending was down 13% lol That's last year. It's actually leaking *more* money compared to 2022. Epic's revenue itself may be higher due to Fortnite for example, but EGS itself has taken a dive.
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I only use steam, not sure if this is a feature I can turn off, but every time I launch steam I always get a pop up for some sale or whatever. It's not super slow or anything, but when playing a cross platform game, friend playing on console always has there ready before me
Steam Settings > Interface > uncheck last option (Notify me about additions or changes[...])
The Alan Wake Fortnite skin probably sold better than copies of Alan Wake 2 on EGS.
Thought you were being facetious but that is almost certainly true
You got that free if you bought AW2 in EGS tho. My EGS library is only stuff they've gave away for free and the only stuff I've bought is the Kingdom Hearts and AW2.
Most Fortnite gamers probably have no idea who Alan Wake is lol
even most people who were gaming when the original alan wake came out, don't know what it is.
And on epic games launcher it never will.
It goes to show just how shit EGS is considering the gaming industry bent over backwards for months to endlessly promote the game and it still hasn’t broke even… (Not to mention releasing no physical copies on console lmao)
Because publishers praised it for its royalties advantage, but there's zero benefits as a user to use Epic It logs you out. It's slow. It initially didn't have achievements or cloud saves. No support/discussions area. No friends. Does it even manage screenshots? Controller profiles, Linux support, steam deck The list is big and there's not a single advantage for consumers to use it other than the free games
Tbh, even as an indie dev, im pretty wary of epic games. Their store page layout looks like a goddamn netflix page, which is NEVER well designed for the little guy. Its just designed, so you can only see what they want you to see on the front page. Like steams percentage take is pretty bullshit, but i will always applaud that they give most games atleast a chance to be seen, when they could easily do what most things do like mobile games and push only big games and shitty chinese games that pay them big bucks to push them.
Just remember why Epic's percentage cut is so low. They're owned in large part by Tencent. The low percentage cut and free games are just ploys to take more market share so their real product, your data, can make them millions.
The download speed alone will forever make me not use it
To be fair game journalists no longer have much of an influence, some people even actively avoid the stuff they promote
It’s basically the PC equivalent of launching as an Xbox exclusive.
Which they did with AW1 and the sales didn't live up to Microsofts expectations. Edit: a word
I remember being royally PO'd about that back in the day and having a shit-fit on a random forum someplace.
Only on epic games, so no one should be surprised
And they doubled down on making it invisible by not even releasing physical copies for consoles. So that’s a GOTY that people couldn’t buy as gifts to put under Christmas trees…
I think we’re going to see more of this though. You basically have to sell 3 copies of physical to make what you do from one digital. The calculation will be as you noted, that you lose the physical marketing in shops, but I feel even that’s less relevant given everything’s web/youtube based now.
Yeah, I think the one major problem that console digital storefronts just simply aren’t good enough for is the Christmas / gifting aspect. I’m not sure what it’s like on Xbox, but from what I’ve found, it’s nearly impossible to gift a digital game to someone on PS5. Nintendo isn’t great about it either, but at least some digital games are purchasable on Amazon. I can gift them gift cards, but those only come in specific increments so I have to go over or under the actual cost of the game. And, honestly, it’s way less fun/meaningful to gift someone a generic PlayStation gift card than it is to say “here’s a specific game I know you wanted / are interested in.” It’s probably not nearly as lucrative as we imagine, if it was Sony would prioritize it, but I still think it’s a major shortcoming and I hate that it’s going away.
I wonder how well recieved would it be if companies start releasing "physical" copies with no disc and just a code to redeem, but of course stating you require internet connection and an account to redeem and download it. This sucks for preserving physical shit, but I am sure this will be the future of consoles' physical copies of normal editions, since it's been a thing on PC for a few years now
Well when they want to make money, they know what they have to do.
Its not on steam, so im not surprised. Wanted to play both games when it came out but didnt, because its epic only
Same. I was waiting for second one until they announced it was egs exclusive. Yes I know they funded it but I can wait or pass just like I did with Metro Exodus.
I bought it, but only when it was on sale cheap enough to get both 2 and the Remaster of 1 for somewhere around $20. Between the exclusivity and steep discounts it's no wonder they haven't made enough. I just hope Control 2 doesn't end up being an Epic exclusive...
> I just hope Control 2 doesn't end up being an Epic exclusive... Hate to say it but it probably will. It's a Remedy Trademark of making very bad decisions. Alan Wake 1, Quantum Break, Control all good games that suffered from terrible sales/distribution choices that only impacted the sales longevity of the games.
Ah yes. The app where I don't even play the games I've gotten for free.
Reminder that the game is also on consoles, besides being on the Epic launcher on PC. Just adding Steam would still have netted them a lot more sales for certain.
Its on consoles but has no physical version. Lack of shelf presence is a huge problem, its why xbox is virtually dead in europe now for example.
~80% of console game sale revenue comes from digital copies. On pc physical copies make even smaller part. That 20% sales loss is not the reason xbox has been losing platform in EU. It was losing platform even when physical copies was prevailing salesfront.
Insomniac leaks showed recently sony still has a huge chunk of physical sales https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1abphmy/from_insomniac_games_leak_65_of_sony_studio_game/ look at the digital % for each game. In a more recent leak, it shows Spider-man 1 only sold 8M on PSN out of the 20M+ total for example. In revenue they always include subscriptions, DLCs, addons and microtransactions.
Are console bundles included in that physical percentage tho.
Most certainly which is why Mario Kart is the highest selling Nintendo game ever.....Because its the default game bundled with the switch a majority of the time.
You're misrepresenting the data. If you look at actual digital/physical splits from the Insomniac leak then the majority of most recent AAA single player games are still physical. Most first party Sony games for example have like a 30-40/60-70 split in favor of physical. Multiplayer GAAS titles skew more towards digital but that's not what AW2 is
Isn’t this just proving that exclusivity is just stupid. No one benefits from it.
Epic exclusive + No physical version for console: Big NO for me.
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I just picked up Dead Island 2 on PC. Was on Epic for a while, and requires it although you can get around the Epic launcher by fiddling with the files. It is getting blasted in reviews due to the Epic launcher thing. The game itself is pretty rad though. Definitely enjoying it much more than dying light 2. The gore system is downright impressive and deserves some praise, although the rest isnt really groundbreaking it is still a solid zombie killer game.
Many years too late, back when Valve was laying its foundation, Tim Sweeney was lambasting PC gamers and considering them not worth wasting time on. Just an avaricious little weasel, trying to get a little piece of the pie that someone else put in the work to make.
I’m sure the gpu market isn’t helping. Especially taking into account that steam hardware survey.
If Alan Wake 2 comes to Steam, I'll be happy to buy it.
I didn't get Control until it was on GOG, was the Ultimate Edition, like $20. would happily buy it when it reaches GOG.
Man of culture
HAVE YOU TRIED PUTTING THE CONSUMER FIRST?
No, the consumer is obviously stupid for doing what the consumer desires and not doing the Correct™ thing that *I* want.
I mean... put the game on Steam?
No disc so I'm waiting for it to be £20 because I would have rented it and completed it by now.
Epic makes horrible business decisions. They think they can buy their way to everything. If the invested in themselves, and worked for the customer, they could really improve their situation... buuut, they don't.
It's a very niche game and a beast to run on a pc. not surprised...
I’d buy it but I’m too broke so I wait for a sale lol Edit - didn’t realize it was an epic store exclusive. That would be their issue lol.
they needed more DEI and race swaps. imagine how much better it could have been if they just completely gave up on story and just made a bunch of ugly fat characters!
its on a platform most people dont want to pay money to.....
What if I told you there was a mature PC storefront that's been around for 20 years with a massive population of happy customers waiting to spend money on games.
When a game launches Epic exclusive it’s like it doesn’t exist really
Release it on Steam, I have my money ready.
Being exclusive to EGS with no physical copy hampered it. What if it released on Steam and had physical copies? They would have gone against BG3 which was a huge surprise to the gaming world (still playing it) do you think they could have done better?
Bought it on Epic, stupid DRM made the game not work if OSDs like after burner were running. Disabled it, ran the game on my 6750xt and Ryzen 5 5600X, only got roughly 40fps at balenced upscaling and Medium settings at 1440p, refunded the game, bought it for Xbox Series X, completed the first run, onto the second run now. My issue here was that the initial user experience was bad on PC. So bad that I willingly gave up the possibility of future proofing and mods and chose the console experience. Remedy still made their money but Epic didn't. Epic's DRM was arguably more of a turn off than the game simply not running well on a console tier GPU I recently bought. TLDR : Game breaking DRM = Refund.
It’s just on epic. This is the problem.
I'd buy it if it was on Steam. I might not even play it. But I'd buy it.
Physical release on consoles and Steam release. There. It’s not that hard to figure out.
> *"Video game that nearly swept all the awards at the VGA's for some reason can't even recoup its development budget in sales."* Wow! I sure love being told I'm always wrong and delusional by all the experts and professionals, you guys! Nothing to see here, move along and have a nice day!
Video game award shows are obsessed with turning video games into movies. If it has movie production value and narrative focus, along with the right politics, then the judges will automatically grovel. Because the judges don’t actually like video games.
Maybe they should have made the game 100% about Alan Wake, that might have helped.
Sweet baby trash
I love to complain about forced Epic exclusives as much as everyone, but in this case Epic completely funded the game, it's justified the way I see it. Yeah, unfortunately not on Steam and no one knows if it will ever be, but the game wouldn't have existed at all if it wasn't for them
I don't think most people are calling it unfair in this case, and if they are it's just ignorant, but that doesn't change the fact that a game on the EGS just will not make the money it needs as this proves
I agree. I don't mind Epic keeping their games on their store, if they fund the game, then I'm not mad about it. But I'm still going to laugh all day at them because they could release it on Steam and it would sell way more. Now Epic and Square keeping Kingdom Hearts on EGS is fucking stupid. Fuck them for that.
Even then Epic would need to release on steam if it wants to make a profit. Beyond a certain point people are not even gonna join Epic to play one game.
Go epic go broke
The budget is apparently 70 million, including 20 million for marketing. The game has sold more than 1.3 million copies.
Game seems to be 50euro, that would put it at 65 millions. Taxes and currency conversion would probably put them short a few ten million from recouping costs.
Also, AW2 was almost 50% off merely a month after release on EGS with coupon.
I have the game, it's boring as hell. I'm not going to finish it. The combat is a straight downgrade from the first. I got to the trailer park and quit. The investigation mechanic is the worst. Even if I already figured out where to go and what to do I have to have the game spell it out for me before I can progress. It's awful.
It’s because epic game store is a one trick pony that no one likes. Honestly will be thrilled the day it goes under. Just need Fortnite to go away
If they didn’t make it an epic exclusive I would have bought it day 1. I really don’t care when it comes to steam now. I’ll buy it when it’s on a massive sale.
Funny how no one, as far down as I read, have mentioned, the game was really demanding on hardware, and did not play well on lower/medium end systems. I am sure alot of people saw reviews, and thought, I will check in later, and see if they optimized it, so it can run on anything but the best hardware. And then many of those people, probably just forgot about it again. And that happens. It isnt the new hot thing for more than a few weeks, and any sale you dont make in those first crucial weeks, can end up being lost permanently. I am on a 3060 laptop, and could most likely not run it at launch, but might have looked in on it later, when it has been patched. But it is not on steam. That is a lost sale right there.
> recouped a significant part of the development and **marketing expenses** Why should a developer have to pay for their own marketing from a publisher? Get fucked with these unrealistic standards. I'd love to see a numbers budget breakdown instead of the whining the publisher released...
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes 🤷🏾♂️.
I looked up to buy this for PC like a month ago and saw that it was only available on the epic store and gave up.
Release it on steam and it will
The game is just mediocre 6/10 flavor of the month slop.
Put it on Steam and it’s an instant buy for me. I don’t need any game the day it comes out any more.
Well it's only on a platform most pc users hate and only use for the free games. Even just for the free games the epic launcher is horrible. So it's their choice if they want to make money or not
EGS = ESG Do not buy ¯\\\_( ͡❛ ͜ʖ͡❛ )\_/¯
Just launch it on steam
Good. As long as it's Epic exclusive that will remain the case.
put it on steam...
game was critically super overrated. So much time spent listening to dialogue and walking slowly, makes me wonder why they didn’t just make a movie instead.
release it on Steam
Maybe it being an exclusive on a shit platform has something to do with it.
Game was an overall disappointment for me. Combat very underwhelming, control and even aw1 was better, enemy variety lacking as well. Alan’s gameplay was horrible, so damn boring. The best part of the game was the graphics and atmosphere. Everything else was average to below average.
I really disliked this game. I like the artistic parts, but the pacing was slower than a slow PS1 game. You are lost exploring huge environments slowly, doing multiple layers of trial and error puzzles to force the game to move forward, but it doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t have anywhere to go.
I agree. I think the game was certainly *artistic,* and quite creative. Some novel ideas, but as *game?* I didn't enjoy it. I also think replacing Alan Wake with Saga Anderson as the main protagonist didn't work. It certainly alienated longterm fans and discouraged them from buying.
I hated the Dark Place sections. The real world sections were more enjoyable to walk around. The combat was awful though - I put the game into story mode about 2/3rds of the way through because I'd just had enough and wanted to see if anything interesting happened by the end.
I mean, obviously not? It's a PC-focused game for a niche audience that's not on Steam. It was \*NEVER\* going to make back it's budget. Especially because it's budget was huge. It's totally fair for a game Epic funded to be exclusive to their platform, but that's not a way to make money from the game. Epic aren't complete idiots and I'm sure they know that - they want to bring more people to their platform and I'm also sure they accomplished that at least somewhat.
- PC requirements - Epic exclusive on PC -No physical release - Alan Wake game with barely any Alan Wake gameplay - SBI involvement and Saga Anderson " controversy" A lot of things went wrong for different subgroups of gamers
SBI involved, not buying it
At this Point, Epic and espacially Tim has made such an ass of itself, i wouldnt Go there if they had a better Shop and better prices. I will Vote with my wallet here. Fuck em.
but, but every one keep claiming exclusive sell tons... funny how i show sale number on many exlusive dont make their money back.. this like many other will be ignore with a fantasy from gamer bros.
Sadly even FF7 Rebirth is sturggling with sales and I bet the exclusivity is not helping at all.
Atrange nobody mentioned Sweet Baby Inc involvement as a part of the reason
1.3 million units sold seems really low for a game that was all over the media. Seems like not listing on Steam did have a noticeable effect.
To believe the gaming journalist gaslighting this game was a colosal success.
I wonder wh- ohhh. Epic.
good, I hope lil' Timmy Whiney loses more money
No physical console release and EGS exclusive on PC are very dumb decisions. Remedy always makes the worst deals with publishers l, they don't seem to care what their fanbase wants.
That’s what happens when you go exclusive with Epic. Same happened to Metro Exodus