108 replies to this topic

[Grimm Shado]

Here are notes I took from this morning's AMA, most of which focus on why EGS and what benefits. I did not catch everything, apologies for any errors or omissions.
Epic talked to PGI in Nov/Dec, asked about plans, PGI said planning to sell through their own webstore. Then talked again in April and started to think an EGS exclusivity deal would probably happen a few days before end of community preorder. Thinks 30% steam fee is absurd and is excited about what Epic is trying to do and thinks lower fees through Epic will help development community make more/better games.
Russ hears people say going Epic exclusive is a short term money grab. If Russ thought this was the case he would not do the exclusive deal. Russ tends to believe MW5 can do as well or better on Epic than on Steam. Steam is a great platform now. It wasn’t always this well developed. People used to hate that they had to use Steam to play HL and CS. Now Steam is so big there is a discoverability concern – 150 games released per week on Steam. Even a good quality game with a recognizable name, without big marketing dollars you can slip off the front page quickly and be hard to find. With Epic games store, sure they do have the biggest game in the world on it, and getting big names like Borderlands 3. But MW5 will be front page for more than a few days on Epic. Maybe weeks, a month, or longer. Other gamers scrolling through first page and seeing MW5 could lead to more discoverability and greater sales than on Steam because of this visibility. On EGS, Epic takes only 12%. Steam takes 30%, plus 5% for Unreal engine licensing. So 35% on Steam, or 12% EGS. A company can’t afford to ignore this difference in cost. It would be a disservice to the (game) brand to ignore this difference.
Epic is also offering great deals to developers by offering up front money. We estimated in Dec 2018 MechCon that we could release in September 2019. But when we decided this, for a small company, it’s a big investment to develop for another 9 months to further improve the game before release. It was a bit of a stretch. But later it became clear if they ship in September they could only deliver English on release, and marketing program would be small. But also September releases got more crowded throughout the year. Gears of war, borderlands. The up front money from Epic allows them to further push out release to December, thinks December is a more favorable release time for a MW game, historically they've had big announcements in Dec and done MechCons in Dec. With 3 extra months they could commit to delivering German, French, and Russian. The biggest MW markets, much better than only releasing to English. Also can commit to much bigger marketing budget. Add all these together and it became an obvious decision to PGI, the best thing to do for the product.
After managing MWO for 7 years we’ve had great times, and times of community unrest. We’ve tried to become better at managing a community. We were aware of discussions in last 6 months, and that this decision would cause anger in the community. You have to make hard decisions sometimes. We knew we’d be stepping into that anger, but it was still a clear decision. We had to do EGS exclusivity to give MW5 the best chance. Whether it is us developing sequel, or someone else, we thought EGS gave us best shot at a successful release that would guarantee future MW products. We knew because people would be angry we’d have to do the right thing and offer full refunds. The policy used to say if you redeemed MWO content no refund, but we decided with going to EGS that policy wasn’t fair anymore and to let you keep MWO content if you wanted refund. Epic is not paying for refunds, PGI is paying for the refunds.
A lot of people asked how many pre-orders. There were slightly under 20,000. We were pretty happy. MWO founders pre-order had 70,000 preorders but it was a different period, before Star Citizen. In 2019 they feel 20,000 preorders is great and they are very grateful. As of now have received 1,200 refund requests, about 6%, will probably see a few more but usually it’s the first day or two the majority of requests come in.
That’s the full explanation, thanks for listening in.
Why not more MW5 videos? We’ve been holding back, some of the very best stuff, large urban battles, trying to make sure we have things with some pop for the release
Why wait till November for Beta? Nowadays, people don’t look at a Beta and say “this looks like a product with good potential but I found all these bugs, I’m going to submit them”. Now it’s “wow all these bugs this game sucks!”. So it needs to be really more polished, that’s why it’s later. We do get valuable feedback on co-op connectivity (& other areas) so we do want you to participate in beta.
Feature most excited to improve: Localization is big. Also more cohesion in campaign story. We’ve hired an experienced narrative designer and think the story will really get good polish with extra 3 months.
How sell more EGS than Steam. Critical mass is so large at Steam that we go through push (?) and 10 hours later we’re not getting visibility anymore (?). Metro Exodus has sold more on EGS than the previous 2 Exodus games sold on Steam. EGS might not have the numbers Steam has, but there are plenty of people there to know about it if you make a good game. I don’t need all Steam’s user population to sell 1M copies MW5, I just need maybe 10M to see and enough to be interested. I believe in discoverability being better on EGS.
About 2 weeks from Alpha now for MW5. 6 weeks until go to Beta. Development is in a good spot. Whole team very excited for extra 3 months.
Sorry for all the parts/questions I missed.

[Armored Yokai]

Grimm Shado, on 26 July 2019 - 10:18 AM, said:

Here are notes I took from this morning's AMA, most of which focus on why EGS and what benefits. I did not catch everything,

If he said that in the MW5 site and posted a video of him saying that in MWO main page then I am sure the backlash wouldn't be so strong as of now. If you just tell the people who are buying your product what your reasons are in full honesty I am sure many people would be disappointed but at least happy they got the truth.

[Horseman]

The6thMessenger, on 26 July 2019 - 07:31 AM, said:

Okay, lets accept that Steam is bad for the developers. How is the exclusivity deal helping? Steam wouldn't be threatened by Epic Games because it isn't a competition, it's a moron that is shooting itself in the foot with all of the bad press that is just pushing consumers away, and rightly so -- and Steam is just smiling smugly on the corner with the dumpster fire waiting to happen, because Steam knows that as soon as the exclusivity deal expires, people will flock towards it anyways. And guess what, you really think people would be okay paying full-price on a game that is already out for a year?

No, so it's likely that it's not helping the developers at all. Lower sales, lost customer faith, followed by mandatory price-cut after exclusivity deal which means lower revenue despite higher sales, and you still got Steam as the monster of the industry that is still basically monopoly.

It'll probably even kill kickstarted games, you know why? Because of Shenmue 3 and other kickstarted games as an example. People will feel betrayed, and as a result wouldn't want to kickstart another game that will stab them on the back.

12% helps, sure. But that is not the issue, forget the pay-cut, it's the strong-arming anti-consumerism that is bad. That 12% ain't going to matter if sales are going waaay down anyways. I'd be okay with GOG exclusive.

QFT. It's not "what's bad for the customer is good for the developer", it's "what's bad for the customer is TOXIC for the developer in the long run"

[MischiefSC]

Nightbird, on 26 July 2019 - 07:29 AM, said:

What support do you mean? Like technical help for creating your game?

If you sell your game at a store, how much help do you expect the store to put into connecting you and your customers? For sales numbers, I'm sure you get that when you get paid... otherwise how do you know Steam took 30%?

You're in analytics, you know how critical access to numbers is. No marketing data, no marketing data help, not even tools for you to figure out how to position your game relative to everything else on there. EPIC, conversely, provides a lot of that. Marketing data you can use to position your game in the market itself.

Plus, yeah. Issues with your game and the Steam client for example, or issues downloading it. Anything.

The6thMessenger, on 26 July 2019 - 07:31 AM, said:

Okay, lets accept that Steam is bad for the developers. How is the exclusivity deal helping? Steam wouldn't be threatened by Epic Games because it isn't a competition, it's a moron that is shooting itself in the foot with all of the bad press that is just pushing consumers away, and rightly so -- and Steam is just smiling smugly on the corner with the dumpster fire waiting to happen, because Steam knows that as soon as the exclusivity deal expires, people will flock towards it anyways. And guess what, you really think people would be okay paying full-price on a game that is already out for a year?

No, so it's likely that it's not helping the developers at all. Lower sales, lost customer faith, followed by mandatory price-cut after exclusivity deal which means lower revenue despite higher sales, and you still got Steam as the monster of the industry that is still basically monopoly.

It'll probably even kill kickstarted games, you know why? Because of Shenmue 3 and other kickstarted games as an example. People will feel betrayed, and as a result wouldn't want to kickstart another game that will stab them on the back.

12% helps, sure. But that is not the issue, forget the pay-cut, it's the strong-arming anti-consumerism that is bad. That 12% ain't going to matter if sales are going waaay down anyways. I'd be okay with GOG exclusive.

Exclusives are a deeply anti-consumer marketing approach. I hate them, I hate that EPIC uses them, I gave EPIC a try but will in the future do my best to avoid ever, in any way, buying anything from them specifically because of that.

However don't kid yourself. There's ~100 million people using it and buying stuff and sales numbers on the platform are not bad. That's the reality of it. Yes, exclusives are **** and EPIC is **** for doing it. From a game developer perspective though they are literally making it worth their while even with the negative press.

What we can really hope is that it's not sustainable for them. I hope they're losing enough money they have to give up that approach as soon as possible.

[VonBruinwald]

Grimm Shado, on 26 July 2019 - 10:18 AM, said:

On EGS, Epic takes only 12%. Steam takes 30%, plus 5% for Unreal engine licensing. So 35% on Steam, or 12% EGS. A company can’t afford to ignore this difference in cost. It would be a disservice to the (game) brand to ignore this difference

....


A lot of people asked how many pre-orders. There were slightly under 20,000. We were pretty happy. MWO founders pre-order had 70,000 preorders but it was a different period, before Star Citizen. In 2019 they feel 20,000 preorders is great and they are very grateful. As of now have received 1,200 refund requests, about 6%, will probably see a few more but usually it’s the first day or two the majority of requests come in.
...

Does anybody want to do the maths on how many cancellations we need before PGI are taking a loss on pre-orders?

Edit: Nevermind, Did it my self.... 5250 cancellations (or 26%)...

Edited by VonBruinwald, 26 July 2019 - 01:45 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

VonBruinwald, on 26 July 2019 - 01:32 PM, said:

Does anybody want to do the maths on how many cancellations we need before PGI are taking a loss on pre-orders?

Uh, all of them?

[VonBruinwald]

Y E O N N E, on 26 July 2019 - 01:33 PM, said:

Uh, all of them?

I meant based on the 20k they had if it had shipped on Steam.

Unless you're talking about the extra money EPIC threw at them on top of everything. In which case, yeah they'd need them all cancelled plus charge-back fees.... wait, maybe that's why they have that "warning" in there.

[Y E O N N E]

VonBruinwald, on 26 July 2019 - 01:57 PM, said:

I meant based on the 20k they had if it had shipped on Steam.

Unless you're talking about the extra money EPIC threw at them on top of everything. In which case, yeah they'd need them all cancelled plus charge-back fees.... wait, maybe that's why they have that "warning" in there.

The answer is still "all of them" and then some.

First, I will say the thought problem here is silly; we have no idea how much it cost to develop MW5, so until they broach that number in net revenue they will be operating at a loss.

Second, PGI would only keep 65% of the pre-order money had the game launched on Steam. I suppose if you're looking for the difference between 88% with fewer sales and 65% with more sales, that's a more valid problem.

So let's say that the average of total pre-orders worked out to 85 USD per copy.

20,000 of those is 1.7 million USD.

65% of that (Steam) is 1.105 million USD.

88% of that (EGS) is 1.496 million USD.

Even if 25% of pre-orders get cancelled (5,000 copies), they are still making 1.122 million USD through EGS. At 26%, still at 1.107 million USD. You need ~27% of pre-orders, which would yield only 1.092 million through EGS, to get cancelled before they start making less than they would have through Steam assuming that no pre-orders get dropped with Steam.

[VonBruinwald]

Y E O N N E, on 26 July 2019 - 02:30 PM, said:

Second, PGI would only keep 65% of the pre-order money had the game launched on Steam. I suppose if you're looking for the difference between 88% with fewer sales and 65% with more sales, that's a more valid problem.

Not sure if you noticed but I already did the maths (edited the previous post), I made it 26% or 5250 pre-orders to be cancelled.

[Y E O N N E]

VonBruinwald, on 26 July 2019 - 02:57 PM, said:

Not sure if you noticed but I already did the maths (edited the previous post), I made it 26% or 5250 pre-orders to be cancelled.

Did not notice, sorry,

[yodookie]

The only benefit of the whole deal is PGI was given a fat grip of cash up front for signing the exclusive deal, they even admit to it in a round-about way in their explanations. The move doesn't benefit the community or the players at all.

[Avlaen]

To us? the customer? absolutely no benefit.

In fact, we have LOST workshop support... which is probably gonna be needed to fix PGIs game...

Edited by Avlaen, 27 July 2019 - 02:20 AM.

[Armored Yokai]

We should get started on a Mechwarrior 5 Nexus like Battletech and other games have (Skyrim,fallout,dragonage, etc)

[Juodas Varnas]

VonBruinwald, on 25 July 2019 - 03:47 PM, said:

Would you be happy with your pay getting taxed at 30%? Sure the government provides a lot but when you're doing all the work 30% is pretty heavy.

I get taxed more than that. Many people do.

[meteorol]

The biggest and most important benefit is PGI not filing for bankruptcy (for the moment), which probably would have happened by now without EGS exclusivity money.

Edited by meteorol, 27 July 2019 - 04:04 AM.

[Horseman]

meteorol, on 27 July 2019 - 04:03 AM, said:

The biggest and most important benefit is PGI not filing for bankruptcy (for the moment), which probably would have happened by now without EGS exclusivity money.

According to Russ during the AMA? No, they didn't need the Epic contract money to stay afloat.

[meteorol]

Horseman, on 27 July 2019 - 04:32 AM, said:

According to Russ during the AMA? No, they didn't need the Epic contract money to stay afloat.

Well, yeah, sure. That comes from the guy who repeatedly lied to the community without batting an eye. What exactly would we expect him to say.

Edited by meteorol, 27 July 2019 - 04:41 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

meteorol, on 27 July 2019 - 04:39 AM, said:

Well, yeah, sure. That comes from the guy who repeatedly lied to the community without batting an eye. What exactly would we expect him to say.

Eh, true enough.

But you know, if they aren't capable of staying afloat on their own terms, maybe they don't deserve to stay afloat in the first place.

[Horseman]

meteorol, on 27 July 2019 - 04:39 AM, said:

Well, yeah, sure. That comes from the guy who repeatedly lied to the community without batting an eye. What exactly would we expect him to say.

Well, yeah, sure. It's his word about his company... and it's making his position here infinitely worse.

[Kotzi]

Why do people think that PGI would go broke if MWO fails?