The Epic First Run programme allows developers of any size to claim 100% of revenue if they agree to make their game exclusive on the Epic Games Store for six months.

After the six months are up, the game will revert to the standard Epic Games Store revenue split of 88% for the developer and 12% for Epic Games.

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    76
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    The first few months of a game release are absolutely critical, no matter the size of the studio. I won’t buy anything on Epic just out of principle, and I’m sure there are countless other people who share the mindset. A 100% share, vs a 70% one, is definitely appealing at first glance, but it’ll butcher your numbers for short-term gain

    • jet@hackertalks.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      39
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      As a patient gamer, who hates enticements to get stuck in yet-another-walled garden, I refuse to go with Epic. The benevolent kingdom of steam never forces exclusivity deals, and just out of self interest i wont reward behavior that removes options from me.

      I guess this means I’ll have to wait at least 6 months for some games to show up on steam

      I’m ok with other ecosystems, if they treat people right, like GoG, I’m cool with GoG.

        • NightOwl@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          Found lot of the big titles that go to epic have been terribly unoptimized too at launch requiring fixes anyways, and I don’t want to pay more to be a beta tester. I don’t want to pay more for early access for a game that will be a better experience for customers who buy it much later.

      • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ll have to wait at least 6 months for some games to show up on steam.

        It raises a fun ethical question: Is piracy moral if you fully intend on buying the game at full price when it hits Steam in six months?

        Spare me the “piracy is always moral” arguments; Even as a fellow pirate, the mental gymnastics to justify it get old quickly. Just admit that you won’t/can’t pay for something. So the question is whether or not the morality comes into play when you DO intend on buying the game as soon as it’s available on your preferred platform.

        • NightOwl@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          1 year ago

          Patient gamer does mean actually be patient. If someone is playing a pirated game I would say that doesn’t count as patience with them not depriving themselves of anything.

      • thesmokingman@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Some games are already like this. Borderlands stuff has been an Epic exclusive for a year ish in the past. I played on other platforms to avoid it. I don’t know if that’s still the case or if Borderlands 3 was the exception.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        So if a game is stuck in Steam’s walled garden it’s ok, but if it’s stuck in Epic’s walled garden then it’s wrong?

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      It’s that upfront money they give that’s the big thing for some of these devs I can’t blame them for taking that upfront influx of development capital.

      Still not buying it from Epic, I hate console exclusivity, including Nintendo, and I’m not going to support it on PC.

    • tiredofsametab@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      As a gamer living in eastern Asia, Epic’s exclusives that could only be bought in certain countries due to payment processors pissed me off enough to boycott. I generally don’t touch any games that started as exclusives there, either. The couple of exceptions I have, I waited until they were a couple of years old and > 50% off on Steam or GoG

    • verysoft@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah same, but I also won’t touch anything that goes Epic Games exclusive even when it comes to Steam.

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      A game that sells 10,000 copies on Epic may sell 20,000 or more on Steam since Steam is so popular. If the game sold for $20 they would get $200,000 from Epic or $280,000 from Steam in that scenario.

          • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Or even just has the same features. The EGS launcher is hilariously bad. It’s barebones and intentionally difficult. It’s basically just a shell for their website API, when then raises the question of why they even have a launcher when it’s just a glorified browser.

            And the lack of a shopping cart on their store is just plain aggravating. Maybe I don’t want to do a purchase for each individual game/DLC. But I’m sure they did a focus study somewhere, which found that having a shopping cart encourages people to second-guess their purchasing decisions. Like if you allow people to cart things, they may rethink some/all of those purchases once they get to the final checkout screen and see the grand total. So instead, they’ve opted to make the user experience worse, by forcing you to immediately check out for every single individual item.

            • MisterFeeny@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              1 year ago

              Not that I want to defend EGS here, but I would like to point out that they actually have had a shopping cart for a bit now. Hilarious how long it took them to implement, but they do in fact have one now.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              12
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              If you want to criticize the product you should at least stay up to date on what they offer because now we know you don’t know what you’re talking about :)

              • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                11
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                On the other side of the same coin, it proves that I don’t use the EGS because the launcher has historically been (and still continues to be, as far as I can tell) hilariously bad.

      • Davel23@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        1 year ago

        That’s an awfully generous ratio. I don’t recall all the specifics, but a year or so ago an indie game dev posted the sales stats of his game and left out the Epic Store numbers. When asked, he said that EGS accounted for less than 1% of his sales. Now, I’m not saying that’s going to be the case for all games, but considering EGS’s status as the “black hole of videogame marketing” I would say a 10-1 Steam/EGS ratio wouldn’t be surprising.

          • Nefyedardu@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            It’s their largest issue and they literally just won’t fix it.. Ostensibly because they don’t “track user behavior”. Yeah sure Epic, go with that.

            When it introduced Steam Direct, Valve prioritized the development of Steam features that helped users discover games they might be interested in, such as the Discovery Queue. The Epic Games Store will continue to get interface updates, but as a matter of principle, Allison says that Epic will not track user behavior and use it to algorithmically recommend games. Epic has said in the past that it’s more interested in supporting the game discovery that already happens outside of stores, such as on Twitch and YouTube.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              12
              ·
              1 year ago

              There’s no winning with you guys is there?

              “We don’t track you…”

              “I don’t believe you, I’ll use that paycheck that I know for a fact is tracking me, fuck you!”

              “Eh…”

              • Nefyedardu@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Why the fuck do you care if I don’t like your favorite multibillion dollar corporation? Fuck I wish I could find someone who loves me as much as you love Epic Games Store of all things

                • NightOwl@lemmy.one
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  It’s Tim. Why else would he be personally offended on behalf of epic when people say they don’t use it. He got offended I didn’t install the launcher and play the games despite having an account and at least claiming them on the browser.