
Fortnite dev launches Epic Games Store that takes 12% of revenue - richardboegli
https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/04/fortnite-dev-launches-epic-games-store-that-takes-just-12-of-revenue/
======
notafraudster
One of the things Steam's 30% cut subsidizes is the generation of unlimited
free license keys for developers to do with what they please. So, for
instance, if I am an independent developer, I can sell my game on Steam. Say I
sell 5,000 copies. I can then turn around and generate 25,000 keys gratis, and
sell those on my website (paying maybe a 5-8% fee to my payment processor, but
otherwise taking everything). Those keys activate on Steam, at which point my
customers get the benefits of Steam and I pay nothing for the bandwidth or
upkeep.

This also allows me to give keys to other vendors, like Humble or
GreenManGaming, who do take a cut (in some cases close to Steam's 30%, in
other cases closer to 10-12%). Those vendors may choose to discount my game
beyond the discount I offer by giving up more of their margin to the consumer.

It is not uncommon to see games on Steam where the origin of user reviews is
50% Steam purchases, 50% off-site key activations, which implies that Steam's
effective margin may be as low as 15%.

Now, I think most independent developers are willing to sell on any platform
who will have them and for whom the marginal costs of submitting / uploading
are lower than gross sales, so certainly I don't think Epic is making a bad
move here and I suspect they'l get decent developer uptake, but I also think
the sort of "topline sticker comparison" obscures some of what's going on.

To some extent there may be value in having this discussion a week from now
when Epic has rolled out the store and we have a better idea of how other
considerations stack up.

~~~
hesdeadjim
I've heard rumors from people I trust that they are going to crack down even
further on keys, possibly to the point of making it so you can't resell
elsewhere.

~~~
imtyler
This may not be a bad thing, though. (As long as they're doing it with
discretion.)

A comment by 'vatueil' in this thread hinted at an important point: Steam is
currently battling the massive library of half-baked 'crapware' that snuck
onto the platform for the _sole purpose_ of being sold off as cheap keys in
bulk. It's really more of a scam than anything.

Valve has a reputation to uphold, and it's no wonder they want to put this
practice to and end.

~~~
snarfybarfy
Maybe they should not have let crapware onto their platform in the first
place?

It did not passively sneak in, it was actively let in by Steam.

~~~
imtyler
I feel like there's some hindsight bias here. By that I mean:

If I took two equally bad games-- one by a legitimate developer who may need
some practice, and another by a developer whose intention is to scam the
system-- would you be able to tell which is which?

I would argue that the former has a right to be on the platform (good luck
trying to objectively define what constitutes a 'good' game, after all) and
the latter does not. But there's no way to tell them apart until the devs show
their true colors.

Seems fair to me.

------
Reedx
Official announcement - [https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/announcing-
the-epic-...](https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/announcing-the-epic-
games-store)

 _" 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%."_

 _" From Epic’s 12% store fee, we’ll have a profitable business we’ll grow and
reinvest in for years to come!"_

This is great news for indies who Steam seems to be ignoring[1] lately in
favor of AAA. Maybe that will eventually put enough pressure on them to at
least reduce their cut. There's been increasing concern over whether it's
worth it for indies given the lack of visibility. If you have to push an
audience there anyway, is it worth the 30%? Jason Rohrer[2] and Positech
Games[3] for example have been successful outside of Steam keeping a much
larger piece of the pie.

1\. [http://greyaliengames.com/blog/steams-discovery-algorithm-
ki...](http://greyaliengames.com/blog/steams-discovery-algorithm-killed-my-
sales/)

2\. [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-12-jason-
rohr...](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-12-jason-rohrers-off-
steam-paid-off)

3\. [https://www.positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2018/11/23/selling-
gam...](https://www.positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/2018/11/23/selling-games-direct-
from-your-website-in-2018/)

~~~
laythea
"...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%."

So there is a bias in the Epic store towards Unreal titles then, contrary to
what I just read.

~~~
gamblor956
No bias. If you sell a Unity game, the fee to Epic is 12%. If you sell an
Unreal Game, the fee would have been 12% for the store plus 5% for engine
royalties for a total of 17%, which would strongly dis-incentivize developers
from using Epic's own engine. Epic is simply waiving that 5% engine royalty so
that its store is game-engine-agnostic.

~~~
chii
You forgot to mention the Unity cut in your sum.

Epic is certainly not making the store engine neutral. It costs less to use
unreal than unity.

~~~
gamblor956
Unity is royalty-free altogether, you pay a subscription for the development
tools (think Adobe CC or MS Office365) and get all upgrades during your
subscription. You can alternatively not pay a subscription fee at all, and
accept certain restrictions on your engine's capabilities, mostly on the use
of enterprise-level features an indie developer wouldn't have the resources to
use anyway.

So, by eliminating the 5% engine royalty for its own store, Epic is making
Unreal _also free_ and thus engine choice is not a deciding factor in whether
to use Epic's store.

IOW/tldr: Unity and Unreal cost the same amount of money to use and license if
you sell through the Epic store.

~~~
tokyodude
> You can alternatively not pay a subscription fee at all, and accept certain
> restrictions on your engine's capabilities

Just fyi: that is not how the unity license works. Unity's license is if _your
company_ makes >= $100k a year you're required to buy the $400 per seat
license. If your company makes >= $200k year you're required to by the $1500
per seat license. Period. So for example if you're employee of Google and in
your 20% time you download Unity you are not allowed to use it for free.
Google makes X billion a year. That's greater than $200k a year. All employees
of Google who download Unity for work related purposes are required to have
the $1500 per year seat license.

This has nothing to do with whether or not you publish a game. Unity is sold
similar to Photoshop. It's a subscription. The only difference is unlike
Photoshop, Unity has a free tier for people and companies that make less than
$100k a year.

From the unity site

Free version eligibility: I or my company generate annual revenues or raised
funds less than $100k

Plus version eligibility: I or my company generate annual revenue or funds
raised of $200k or less

~~~
gamblor956
You're not required to buy the $1500 license _unless_ your company has already
made $200k. If your first game goes bonkers and sells $1 million on the free
version, you do not have to pay $1500 for the Plus version unless you make DLC
or a new game after your bonanza. The license is prospective, not
retrospective.

Other than that, you've just restated what I already said. Unity provides the
tools on subscription, but does not charge a royalty anymore.

------
CivBase
They've made their argument for why developers should publish there. Now, why
should I want to use the Epic Games Store as a launcher?

Don't get me wrong. There's plenty of room for Steam to improve. I want
launchers to compete for its _users_ , but all they ever seem to compete for
is _publishers_. For all of Steam's problems, people love it because it offers
a huge feature set out of the box.

\- Achievements \- Friends lists \- Voice and text chat \- Family sharing \-
Streaming \- Multi-drive support \- A decent refund policy \- User reviews \-
An easy-to-use mod workshop \- Cloud saves \- User-generated tags \-
Independent curators

The list goes on...

So-called "competitors" never bring even half that feature set to their new
platforms. Instead, they force users to switch by making games exclusive to
their platform.

A lot of people have talked about publishers having incentives to distribute
games on multiple platforms, but history has shown us that they simply don't.

I don't know what the solution is. I guess I just wanted to vent.

~~~
ryandrake
> \- Achievements - Friends lists - Voice and text chat - Family sharing -
> Streaming - Multi-drive support - A decent refund policy - User reviews - An
> easy-to-use mod workshop - Cloud saves - User-generated tags - Independent
> curators

Do people really care about this stuff? I've started holding my nose and
grudgingly using Steam, and really all I want is a way to buy a game and get
it on my hard drive. I don't need a middle-man to launch it for me or clutter
my system up with achievements and friends and yet-another-chat-app. Every
time I run a game, Steam even shows that little pop-up--as if I needed a
reminder that it's constantly sitting there in memory, eagerly waiting for me
to hit SHIFT-TAB and "engage" with it. Can't I just play the damn game I
bought without the distributor trying to insert itself into the experience at
every opportunity?

~~~
tomc1985
So the shift-tab thing feature was copied from a chat program called Xfire,
which back in the days of AIM and such was a neat way to be able to talk to
your online friends while in a full-screen game.

Steam copied that feature and added a web browser, and the rest of those
interactions some time after.

I agree that it feels like marketing BS but it is cool to be able to chat with
out-of-game Steam friends in-game.

~~~
Insanity
I remember that for quite a long time, Xfire also did it way better than steam
did.

Xfire worked quite well accross all games - they had a nice variety of skins
you could install (compared to Steam's 3 skins including the default one,
IIRC).

It saved your screenshots and videos in 'the cloud', had some neat 'join
server' feature that worked in almost every game and it mostly worked without
any issues.

You could also use their server browser so you didn't have to even launch a
game beforehand, you could just browse for your servers in their program and
then jump right into the game.

Seeing Xfire mentioned brought some nostalgia to me, thank you :D

(Also, Xfire changed to a tournament system and eventually died. Which is a
shame but steam does probably everything and more than Xfire does nowadays.
Except custom skins?)

------
billfruit
I keep repeating this: two things Steam does right are effortless no-
questions-asked refunds, localized prices in many regions of the world, so
that people in poorer countries pay affordable prices.

I do think that Steam is only going to grow bigger, because most of the growth
in game sales are going to come from China, Russia, India, Indonesia,
Bangladesh, Africa, Mexico, Brazil etc than US and Europe. But most other
stores does not seem to understand that expanding to these markets is key, and
seems to be operating in US&Europe centric strategy.

(Off-topic: Incidentally Indonesia is not far behind the US in population, but
current predictions show that they aren't going to overtake the US anytime
soon, however Nigeria is on track to overtake both US and Indonesia to become
the 3rd most populous country by 2050).

~~~
mywittyname
GoG does both of these, and have done so for much longer than Steam.

~~~
billfruit
It doesn't not to do either of them as wholeheartedly as steam: GOG refunds
are for technical issues not no-questions-asked. Similarly in my region Steam
prices are lower than GOG prices. Moreover like GOG, steam also supports DRM
free games(if the developer wants a game to be DRM free).

------
jsgo
Pulling from what I said in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18600248](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18600248)

I guess this explains Valve improving the revenue share a bit on Steam
recently.

Also, at first I wasn't thinking this would be much of anything (yet another
storefront), but the kicker per the article is that those developing in Unreal
Engine would not pay a percentage for the use of Unreal Engine (~5%) on top of
the store cut (~12%). That would probably be huge for developers so I could
see this one actually taking off.

------
EamonnMR
I wish Valve had pushed harder to compete with Origin, but this looks like the
end of its complete dominance. Once EA demonstrated that anybody could hack
together a launcher, it's become a free for all. As a consumer it's been a
worse and worse experience since increasingly small companies felt the need to
replace steam with technically inferior solutions. But this is different-now
we get a competitor which is willing to sell more than just its own titles,
and this will be a major blow to steam (because indies will go for this-
fortnight will be the killer app for this new store just as Half Life 2 was
for Steam.) I was really rooting for Valve because they where making a linux
gaming future look possible.

~~~
guitarbill
> this will be a major blow to steam

we'll see. i'm in no hurry to rush out and buy anything that isn't on Steam.
all these articles talk about the cut Epic will take, but as a customer, I
couldn't care less. what i do care about is e.g. Steam's excellent return
policy. maybe i'm just getting old and am not that interested in games, but
i'm happy to pass up games if they aren't on Steam.

i'd venture a guess that Steam and Epic Games Store may not be competing for
quite the same market; Steam is likely to remain dominant for PC gaming (maybe
rightly so, they have worked hard to get there), and Epic Games Store might
focus more on mobile gaming instead. so it's a bigger threat to the App
Store/Google Play than Steam IMO.

~~~
EamonnMR
The popularity of Fortnite means that there's already a huge install base on
PC. As a customer I don't like to see total vertical integration of platform
and engine tech-I don't want to see Unreal go the way of Source, and I don't
want to see Unity squeezed out.

~~~
beerlord
Don't forget that Epic has built-in 5% affiliate commissions, which they will
cover for the first 24 months.

This whole thing will get huge advertising and popular support, developers
will just need to take advantage of it.

I'm sure there will be some great exclusive games on there too.

------
kgwxd
I'd be more excited for this much needed competition if it weren't a company
that survives by taking advantage of children's naivety of money and natural
impulses to sell virtual outfits and animations at sickening prices. App store
cuts are ridiculously high, but at least they're not taking candy directly
from babies.

~~~
freehunter
I'm not a fan of Fortnite but that is extremely disingenuous. In your
interpretation, parents are completely absolved from responsibility and
apparently children have free access to credit cards that can't legally even
be issued to them.

Want to know the responsible answer to "mommy can I buy a Fortnite skin"? It's
"no". Simple as that. Same as it was when the question was "dad can I buy this
Harry Potter poster" or "mom can I get this GI Joe" or "grandma can I buy a
stick to roll my hoop with" or anything marketed to kids over the past
literally forever.

Don't want your kids spending money on video games? _Don 't give them your
credit card number_. Don't blame Epic for making a fun and free-to-play video
game that kids enjoy. The people actually spending the money aren't kids being
taken advantage of, they're actual consenting adults. Kids don't have credit
cards so they cannot make digital purchases.

~~~
tomc1985
> Don't blame Epic for making a fun and free-to-play video game that kids
> enjoy.

You had me up until this point. No one can deny the extreme amounts of
psychology (read: manipulation) used in children's marketing. (Or any
marketing...)

~~~
freehunter
Marketing can only go so far. There are plenty of things (video games
included) marketed towards kids with big budgets that the children are
completely ambivalent about. If they didn't enjoy Minecraft or Roblox or
Fortnite or Pokemon or JUUL or McDonald's Happy Meals or light-up sneakers,
they'd join the ranks of EZ Squirt ketchup, ET for Atari, New Coke, or the
Virtual Boy.

------
hardwaresofton
I absolutely welcome the competition, but it's going to take a lot for me to
trust the Epic Games Store as much as I trust Valve.

Lots has been written about Valve (employee handbook, supposedly-not-there-
but-actually-just-hidden political hierarchies), but I don't think of them as
a normal for-profit company though they most certainly are. They've taken bets
like steam for linux, the steam controller, steam boxes, their crazy no-
hierarchy structure (no matter how misguided) and I just don't see other game
companies or platform companies doing the same. They have my respect. I've
also never seen them do anything blatantly greedy/money grubbing on a large
scale (though their excuse is usually that they're a small company) and the
gaming community absolutely _loves_ to get out their pitchforks.

Maybe I've just been marketed to really well but I think it takes a certain
kind of company to be who Valve is -- they're like a mozilla in my eyes.

~~~
pjc50
Interesting, since I remember how controversial the Steam DRM was at the time
of its launch.

But Valve _have_ outcompeted and outlasted other vendors by being the least
anti-consumer DRM system with the best discounts that doesn't interfere with
playing your games. If anyone remembers Games For Windows Live, that's an
example of how not to do it. Here's the cheering on RPS when its closure was
announced: [https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/it-
liiiiiiiiives...](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08/20/it-
liiiiiiiiives-gfwl-perma-closing-next-july/)

UPlay and Origin exist but are tolerated through gritted teeth. It remains to
be seen whether Epic get a good or bad reputation.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Point taken, that particular controversy definitely slipped my mind... There
was a time when it didn't have that.

This annoucement definitely made me think of UPlay and Origin, I think I
played a demo of "The District" (?) and there was much gritting of teeth.

I might also be biased against fortnite....

------
criddell
If Apple loses their anti-trust case in court and is forced to open iOS to
alternative app stores, does that mean the consoles would be forced to open up
their platform as well? It would be nice to have some of these alternative
stores on the PS4 and XBox.

~~~
Eridrus
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that console hardware is
usually sold below cost to get people into the ecosystem and make that back as
people buy games.

So forcing console makers to allow other stores would probably have a much
more dramatic impact on the console market.

And while IANAL, it seems a bit of a stretch to apply anti-trust law here.

~~~
Nursie
I'm not sure I see why the level of hardware profitability is at issue?

It's use of platform power to lock in profit and exclusivty that appears to be
at issue.

~~~
freehunter
Yeah if anything that's even worse. Dropping the price of your product to
unsustainable levels to gain a competitive advantage is called "predatory
pricing" and is a valid cause for anti-trust suits.

~~~
Eridrus
This isn't really predatory pricing though.

This is structuring your costs, such that you are profitable over the lifetime
value of the customer, even if you are not necessarily making a profit right
away.

And this has benefits to consumers, who can get into the ecosystem more
cheaply, and developers who can sell to a larger audience, because people can
get in more cheaply.

------
a13n
At first glance, I thought Steam was in big trouble. Last MAU numbers I could
find were 90m for Steam and 75m for Fortnite.

A game store is a marketplace, in startup terminology. Epic already has a lot
of the consumer side, and 60% lower fees is a huge incentive for the developer
side.

But UX-wise, so many games are built on top of Steam. In Rocket League, you
get logged in with your Steam account. You invite friends to party via Steam.

And how would migrating work? Would Epic let me launch the game because I
already own it in Steam? Or would I have to re-purchase? (No way people would
do that)

If I'm playing on Epic, and my friend is on Steam, would we be able to party?

This introduces a ton of complexity, and while certainly troubling for Steam
in the long run (once new games come out), I think their moat is still very
strong.

Also 40% of Epic Games is owned by Tencent, so this would mean China's market
share of the world's gamer market growing, for better or for worse (depending
on your political opinions).

~~~
lazerwalker
I believe there's a decent amount of prior art for games supporting cross-
platform play across Steam and traditional consoles (PS4 / Xbone / Switch).
Presumably you'd need to re-buy a game like Rocket League to get it to show up
in your Epic library, but the Steam version could likely be patched to allow
Epic players to play alongside Steam players?

------
bearcobra
Obviously there's a non-zero cost for developers to publish thru multiple
stores, so it makes sense to try to incentivize them with a greater share of
revenue. It would be interesting if they tried to leverage the popularity of
Fortnite to also do this on Android.

~~~
anoncake
There's also a cost for the customer; they have to use multiple launchers.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Only sort of. All applications use one master launcher: The operating system.
Battle.net, Origin, Steam, etc. all can put desktop shortcuts to individual
games.

~~~
pureliquidhw
Having to manage all those accounts, installing all that launcher software,
and running always on "agents" is anti-consumer.

I've found historically with software that the better something works, the
more likely it is to get screwed up. Netflix has made browsing a chore, Amazon
Video introduced ads, Spotify is getting clunky as they "optimize" the UI,
Gmail taking time to load in 2018 when it didn't in 2015, Android requiring
root to install an app to prevent album art from replacing your lock-screen
background and apps from making obnoxious color choices on notifications.

Ah well, maybe I'm just getting old and people want less robust, clunky
software! /rant

~~~
hguant
I'm absolutely amazed at how bad Gmail has been running lately. Slow to load
initially, UI not updating in a timely manner, keyboard shortcuts stuttering -
the list goes on. At first I thought this was a browser issue (I run Firefox
Nightly), but it's the same in Chrome. It's all very vexing

------
ocdtrekkie
Epic seems to be really trying to kill the 30% cut game. First by bucking the
Play Store on Android and now offering their own competitor to Steam on PC.
Sort of impressive, glad to see we aren't going to be cemented into these cuts
forever.

If everyone who has Fortnite has the Epic Games Store by default, there will
be a huge initial market penetration as well.

~~~
tabs_masterrace
Nice to see some resistance to the 30% cuts, with Apple recently having to
deal with a lawsuit regarding the AppStore as well. Not to diminish the value
of the service, but 30% for what amounts to CDN + Payment Processing, is too
much.

The deal used to come with some amount of marketing & discover-ability, but
that has basically shifted to the developer as well.

But even then, in a normal world you should have to bear some risk of the
product to get that kind of cut.

------
k__
Just yesterday I read a rant by an indie-game dev on Twitter, he complained
that Steam would flush out good indie games by catering more to AAA studios
and simultaneously watering down everything else with Steam direct.

Don't know if this is right and I don't know if the Epic Games Store has a
solution to this problem, but more competition in the space is probably a good
thing.

------
needle0
Everyone seems to be talking about Steam but the forthcoming Android store
feels to me like a much, MUCH bigger deal.

I mean, nobody stops anyone from setting up a new PC game store, and the Epic
PC store is just another entry added to the already long list of stores all
competing with Steam. But on Android (outside China), the Google Play Store
pretty much has a complete monopoly that they made sure was virtually
impossible to break while still being able to be technically called "open."
Sure, Amazon Appstore and a few other stores exist, but they haven't really
been able to make any real impact due to Google erecting so many hoops for
both developers and users to jump through in order to stray from the Google
Play path. (eg. Google Play Services, "Unknown Sources" checkbox buried in
Settings app, etc.)

But now Epic is forcibly prying it open by using Fortnite as their lure to
induce people to actually jump through Google's hoops that were supposed to be
insurmountably high user friction. Of all the past alternative Android app
stores, this one sounds like it could actually work.

The ensuing Google/Epic all-out war should make last year's Google/Amazon
Chromecast/FireTV/YouTube feud look tame. Break out the popcorn.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Indeed, I feel like people missed the bigger news here. And I was always
surprised Steam never tried to take this on: Many Steam library apps are also
available for Android, but Steam has never tried to support cross-platform
access to it.

Another highlight of this: Do bear in mind there's a class action antitrust
lawsuit being bandied about by the Supreme Court right now against Apple and
the App Store. If that doesn't go Apple's way, Epic is potentially poised to
be one of the first players in that as well.

~~~
needle0
I was half expecting Valve to expand to mobile stores back when they first
released their mobile apps. But no, it never went beyond a companion app and
2-factor authenticator.

None of their other initiatives (Big Picture Mode, Steam Controller, Steam
Machine, Steam Link, SteamVR, etc.) ever steered in the general direction of
mobile gaming, either. They've been married to PC gaming since their inception
over 20 years ago, I guess mobile gaming is just not in their DNA.

------
snarfybarfy
In my opinion taking a percentage cut on something that is not strongly
correlated with any special effort, borders on scam.

And yes the scammers are everywhere: your bank, broker, recruitment agency,
financial adviser, real estate agent, etc...

Call me bitter, but I paid way to many years 20% of my paycheck (yay, work for
free on Fridays!) to some agency because they, for no good reason at all,
somehow are into this percentage margin business as well.

The country I live in all major stockbrokers will charge you the higher of $90
or 1% (discount brokers take about half that), whereas a lot of other
countries have enough competition that you get actual flat prices per trade.

You are selling some service, then please put some actual price on it. E.g.
$2000 to review your game and put it onto our platform.

If the service requires ongoing efforts than put some price on this as well.

Without price there can not be any free market.

------
alphakilo
I think we're going to see a lot of Unreal Engine games on this store. With
the UE royalty being absorbed by Epic, it seems like a no brainer.

------
max76
Are game launchers becoming a race to the bottom?

~~~
the_clarence
No. Ubisoft already tried and even gave out a bunch of games for free. Didn’t
work.

~~~
findthewords
What is Ubisoft's carrot? They don't command a game engine ecosystem. What can
they offer that others do not?

~~~
vkou
Ubisoft's carrot is wasting hours of your time fighting a crippled UPlay
launcher that doesn't even work, so that you can access a mediocre Ubisoft
exclusive.

It's a hard pass for me.

------
Animats
And they throw in the Unreal Engine royalty with the 12% cut.

In response to this new competition, Valve reduced prices on Steam on Monday.
Valve just reduced their cut from 30% to 25%, and down to 20% for the high-
revenue titles.[2] Competition is a good thing.

[1] [https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/68183/valve-makes-
change...](https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/68183/valve-makes-changes-to-
distribution-agreement-lowers-rev-share-for-successful-games/)

------
preommr
Well this makes me feel awkward as a Unity dev.

I saw that they'll allow unity based games on their new store but I wonder if
that's just for the short term. Kind of makes me wonder if I should've chosen
Unreal.

~~~
Profan
Considering Tim Sweeney's pretty strong stance against walling in marketplaces
too hard, I think it's.. relatively safe at least.

~~~
throwaway2048
They have indicated that the epic store will have third party exclusives, so I
wouldn't be too sure about that.

------
nogbit
At least now Valve can play their Half Life 3 card if this new store gains
some "steam", I'm sure Gabe N. has been dying to have a reason to.

I'm all for competition, Epic Games rocks!

------
jtokoph
If they pair this with a 10% discount on games to the consumer they can
attract both devs and consumers.

~~~
a13n
Why do they need to attract consumers? Isn't Fortnite already the most popular
game in the world?

From what I can find, latest report of Steam MAU is 90 million people, and
latest report of Fortnite MAU is 75 million.

They already have the consumers.

~~~
nottorp
But Fortnite is free to play crap, so like 0.1% of those 75 million actually
paid something?

~~~
moate
Fortnite is making hundreds of millions of dollars a month{1}. IDK what "free
to play crap" is, but if it can pull in over a billion a year I think most
companies would be happy to have it on their ledger.

1- [https://www.recode.net/2018/6/26/17502072/fortnite-
revenue-g...](https://www.recode.net/2018/6/26/17502072/fortnite-revenue-game-
growth-318-million)

~~~
nottorp
It's simple. 99.9% of the users play without paying a dime, and the game has
to cater to the "whales" that spend thousands.

That's fine when you peddle digital hats, but if they want to open a store,
they want paying customers in it don't they? Most actual games they'd want to
sell need to be paid for upfront... and I don't see the average Fortnite (or
any other free to play abomination) player doing that.

~~~
a13n
Yeah, you'd think, but this survey of 1,000 players said 68.8% had spent money
on in-game purchases.

Maybe they somehow managed to target just the 0.1% of players who spend money
(according to you), but it seems highly unlikely that the numbers are that
low.

[https://lendedu.com/blog/finances-of-
fortnite/](https://lendedu.com/blog/finances-of-fortnite/)

~~~
nottorp
That's interesting. Personally, I'll still think I'm too poor to afford free
games though.

------
laythea
Once upon a time, valve used to develop games. Then it became big and realised
where the money is, and stopped developing games. Epic is currently developing
games. Will they get big and stop? If they did, they still have Unreal. Steam
has nothing other than the store.

~~~
ido
Valve has several extremely profitable games, such as DotA2.

~~~
laythea
Good point. Insert "just a " next to games developer :)

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ashelmire
This is sort of an interesting case study. Markets can be inelastic and see
this sort of unspoken price collaboration... until a major player jumps in
like this and undercuts all them. I think we’ll start seeing a lot more
competition on revenue share thanks to this.

------
tokyodude
This is great news and I hope it shows up in the arguments for the iOS App
Store that Apple's 30% harms consumers because no one is allowed to compete
with a store that takes less of a cut. Valve (30%) vs Epic (12%) seems
extremely relevant to that case.

------
benjaminsuch
Great news, I'm looking forward what Discord is pulling off. As far as I
heard, they also want to push into the game distributing market?

Epic Games seem to me really as one of the very very few game companies who,
beside of marketing, also act very generous.

~~~
beerlord
Discord are already distributing, with a 30% commission.

By all available accounts their launch has been unremarkable, no Indies
getting rich.

Their service is now obsolete with this Epic announcement. They are best just
offering affiliate banner advertising to the Epic Store and getting the 5%
from that.

------
wetpaws
No matter how much I like Steam, breaking their monoculture would be
objectively good.

~~~
dom96
As much as I love Valve I really want them to wake up. Epic Games capturing a
huge portion of their market share would seriously help that.

Maybe I'll see Half Life 3 in my lifetime after all.

~~~
mhh__
I think Valve are keeping Half Life 3 for a rainy day (Given that, if they
played their cards right, they could make significant $$$ just by pushing out
a crappy game 'cos of the name)

------
mhh__
What is the proportion of people with Fortnite who are likely to use this -
like steam e.g. Consistently pay money for games- relative to Valve's
playerbase when steam arrived?

------
wpdev_63
Good! - The steam hasn't changed for the last 10 years. Maybe epic will
actually value their user's experience.

------
echan00
Awesome idea EPIC. Steam had some bullshit for wayyyy too long!

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nottorp
Are they cross platform, or Windows only?

~~~
tobyhinloopen
Unreal Engine & Epic Launcher, and most (all?) epic games are at least macOS +
Windows. I hope & assume their store will be as well

~~~
nottorp
I think it's safe to believe it when you see it, not assume.

------
LeicaLatte
In this age of free to play games, why not? The amazon way.

------
vtesucks
One major upside for publishers in steam is DRM which epic won't offer.

~~~
mtgx
Why? Steam DRM gets cracked all the time.

~~~
jsmith45
Right. Back in the day when CS:Source was still one of the main games played
on steam, whenever they released a new single player game, the limiting factor
for how long until it was on the pirate forums was how long it took to write
up the forum post. The Steam DRM itself was generally cracked at all times.

I've not kept track, but I'd not be shocked if this was pretty much still the
case. It would certainly explain why so many games still have another layer of
DRM when sold on steam.

~~~
vtesucks
I was completely unaware. Thank you.

------
ilaksh
I think eventually Steam will be replaced by some system built on open
distributed systems such as torrents/webtorrents and cryptocurrency. At least
that would make sense.. theoretically the cut that the distribution platform
takes could be zero. So developers have a lot to gain from such a system.

~~~
all2
> theoretically the cut that the distribution platform takes could be zero.

Then there is no reason for a distributed system to remain cohesive. Each node
in the system takes some responsibilities for hosting, bandwidth, etc. Without
giving the distributors a cut, no one will want to distribute. Likewise, not
everyone who buys your game on the network will want to use there space and
bandwidth for distribution.

For a distributed system to _actually_ be functional, all participants need
incentives.

~~~
ilaksh
You're basically arguing that the concept of torrents isn't workable. It's
been proven.

To me the tricky part is licensing but I think technologies like Ethereum
could handle that.

~~~
munchbunny
Licensing is the easy part.

The hard part is discovery (there is always money for someone who can do a
marginally better job matching games to gamers), marketing, financial
infrastructure (dealing with returns, credit card fraud, beta keys, review
keys, DLC, crowdfunding campaigns, microtransactions), social matchmaking, mod
management, etc.

Those are mostly not distributed problems. They are services problems. Steam
is all of those things. The core licensing component is only the most obvious
part.

Torrents only cover distribution. Ethereum only covers cash exchange.

