23 replies to this topic

[Cementi]

Think about the Epic thing this way. The first year is essentially paid for open beta. The Epic crowd can bug test.

After a year the actual launch happens and you can buy the "polished" game from whoever you feel like.

[Monkey Lover]

Sorry this is not an allowable topic. Protection Squadron have been dispatched. Please review the faq for the 5 allowable subjects.

[The6thMessenger]

Well, I ain't paying full-price for a game that already released for a year, maybe 25% off. While it seems to be a silverlining for me when it goes to Sale on its Exclusivity expiration, it's going to be the loss for PGI.

[Prototelis]

Monkey Lover, on 31 July 2019 - 07:12 PM, said:

Sorry this is not an allowable topic.

It is a completely allowable topic; just not in MWO general discussion.

Those threads all got moved to the Battletech section.

[ingramli]

The6thMessenger, on 31 July 2019 - 07:13 PM, said:

Well, I ain't paying full-price for a game that already released for a year, maybe 25% off. While it seems to be a silverlining for me when it goes to Sale on its Exclusivity expiration, it's going to be the loss for PGI.

The chance is MW5 is so badly developed that even PGI themselves dont have much faith in it, which is the reason why they pass the game to EGS for a upfront big cheque as they believe there wont be much people buying from Steam apart from those who placed a pre-order, and the loss of sales moving from Steam to EGS is so insignificant compare to the big cheque from EGS, they are smart in calculating (short-term) profit, sucks in game making IMHO.

Edited by ingramli, 31 July 2019 - 07:19 PM.

[Prototelis]

So here's the thing; I really doubt Epic funded a product without first testing that product.

That's why I have a suspicion the core game is going to be pretty good.

[JadePanther]

Prototelis, on 31 July 2019 - 07:21 PM, said:

So here's the thing; I really doubt Epic funded a product without first testing that product.

That's why I have a suspicion the core game is going to be pretty good.

I think at this point in time epic would throw money at everything if it meant there would be nothing left to sell on steam..

[Prototelis]

Why? Steam already has the market cornered on being flooded with **** games.

[JadePanther]

Its easy.. take the supply away from anyone and they can no longer control the market. Then when everyone is stuck with you, take a bigger cut.

[The6thMessenger]

JadePanther, on 31 July 2019 - 08:40 PM, said:

Its easy.. take the supply away from anyone and they can no longer control the market. Then when everyone is stuck with you, take a bigger cut.

Hence the Exclusivity Deal. What a bunch of deluded megalomaniacs.

Don't get me wrong, Steam needs the competition, but so far GoG was the only contender in that regard, EGS is just horseshit in it's implementation, one wonders why they didn't used the money with those exclusivity deals to actually develop a proper platform. This anti-consumer approach only further lessened consumer faith in their product.

It's funny how they think they're hurting Steam, but really they're hurting themselves and the morons that took the deal, I mean I don't know how the devs behind Shenmue 3 could regain their backers after that debacle.

Prototelis, on 31 July 2019 - 08:02 PM, said:

Why? Steam already has the market cornered on being flooded with **** games.

I don't get why the attention store-front is that big of a deal. My interest of any game is kindled someplace else, like youtube or twitch with Lets-Plays or simple trailer, hell even demonstrations on E3 and other conventions.

The point of Steam, at least for me, was to host the game so i could launch it in my PC with little problem. It's just counter productive to have a bloatware which is ironically the problem itself.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 31 July 2019 - 09:16 PM.

[JadePanther]

i believe epics already said that thier sales cut is not going to be enough to maintian everything in the long run.. so they are just throwing all the fortnight bux at gaining exclusivity and getting as much as they can on thier platform before they have to eventually raise thier sales cut.. If they can make thier store big enough by the time fortnight bux slow down they wont lose as much userbase when they have to raise thier sales cut and cant lock in exclusives nonstop to maintain things.. At which point they are just another game store.

[The6thMessenger]

JadePanther, on 31 July 2019 - 09:14 PM, said:

i believe epics already said that thier sales cut is not going to be enough to maintian everything in the long run.. so they are just throwing all the fortnight bux at gaining exclusivity and getting as much as they can on thier platform before they have to eventually raise thier sales cut.. If they can make thier store big enough by the time fortnight bux slow down they wont lose as much userbase when they have to raise thier sales cut and cant lock in exclusives nonstop to maintain things.. At which point they are just another game store.

Pathetic.

That's just like when CoD got a good review, then they began putting micro-transactions to monetize the **** out of it.

[Nesutizale]

JadePanther, on 31 July 2019 - 09:14 PM, said:

i believe epics already said that thier sales cut is not going to be enough to maintian everything in the long run.. so they are just throwing all the fortnight bux at gaining exclusivity and getting as much as they can on thier platform before they have to eventually raise thier sales cut.. If they can make thier store big enough by the time fortnight bux slow down they wont lose as much userbase when they have to raise thier sales cut and cant lock in exclusives nonstop to maintain things.. At which point they are just another game store.

Jup that is pretty much it. All the bableing about "more money for the developer" is just marketing speach. Give the consumer a good feeling of doing something good for the developer. From what I heard back in the days when things where sold in stores, I mean the real store with physical copys, the store took a up to 45% of the cut. Steam with its 30% was a revolution.
Still companies made a profit and sure game developmnet costs more today but strangely everyone survived with 30% steam cuts.
Also except for small studios or independent ones, I dare say that most of the benefits of Epics lower cut dosn't go fully in developing the next game but a good part into some shareholders pocket.

[Grimm Shado]

It's basic economics. A portion of the savings goes into profit, a portion is invested into developing more games. If Epic is successful in getting enough market share to be a meaningful competitor to Steam, Steam will end up reducing their 30% cut. Epic may increase their 12%, but overall the electronic distribution cost for developers will decrease. When an input or delivery cost decreases in an industry, it acts as an increase to the supply of that product.

S(1) below is the current supply with Steam as the dominant electronic distributor, and S(2) is the increased supply with Steam and Epic competing. Where supply and demand intersect is the market clearing price and quantity. Notice that at the higher supply level S(2), suppliers are willing to produce a greater quantity of the good for a lower price.

Those of you who have studied microeconomics will know that this standard supply and demand model assumes perfect competition. Perfect competition means there are a near infinite number of firms producing goods which can't effectively be differentiated from one another. For example if everyone made 0.25 inch washers, buy a washer from Ace and one from Home Depot and they are effectively the same. Obviously real life differs from this model in important ways. First, there is not an infinite number of firms producing video games. It's a small handful, with larger AAA developers, medium, and small/indie developers all targeting some market niche. Neither are video games washers, they are highly differentiated products that can differ greatly from one another. From these facts we can assume that the market for video games functions more like an oligopoly than a perfect competition model. In oligopolistic competition there is still competition. The general principles of market competition still apply. Therefore I would say it is a pretty safe bet that if Epic succeeds in gaining market share one of the results will be a reduced cost of electronic distribution to developers.

If you are not sure competition induces benefits to consumers in an oligopoly, consider the example of air travel in the United States. Air carriers operated as monopolies for the markets they served. Generally only one carrier was allowed to serve a set of routes. Pricing was set by a centralized regulatory board. Only the well to do could afford to fly. Then the Carter administration deregulated air travel in the 70's, and carriers were allowed to compete over markets. The result was an extended price war, which put several airlines out of business, but which also delivered to consumers dramatically reduced prices. Air travel became something in the reach of lower income classes.

[Nesutizale]

Isn't the second example with the air companys kinda like Epic with its exclusive deals? I mean by making something exclusive to you, you shift the graph above more towards S(1) isn't it so?

I mean when you offer one product at all stores there should be a higher quanity while when you limit the stores you lower the quanity and those would normaly have to raise the prices.

Since Epic dosn't do that, theyself stated that Fortnite is paying for the Epic store right now, those exclusive deals won't do us any good now and later Epic has to either open up to everyone, what isn't their goal. They want a qurated selection of games or they have to increase prices or take money from somewhere else.

To me this seams to be a very risky move on the side of Epic. The could have finaced lots of games when they hadn't done the store. What kinda explains their agressive marketing and greate offers to publishers.
As I said I think this is all marketing, very calculated, very agressive to make sure they have a good costumer base when they will have to turn into normal operation mode.

Where I think you are right is that most likely we will see that Steam, Epic and other platforms will settle at a new "standart" pricepoint over time.

[Grimm Shado]

Nesutizale, on 01 August 2019 - 11:22 AM, said:

Isn't the second example with the air companys kinda like Epic with its exclusive deals? I mean by making something exclusive to you, you shift the graph above more towards S(1) isn't it so?

I mean when you offer one product at all stores there should be a higher quanity while when you limit the stores you lower the quanity and those would normaly have to raise the prices.

On a small scale, in the frame of each individual game you could see it that way. Epic is trying to use exclusivity to drive customers to their store. If you really want title X and it's only available on Epic, you go there for it, unless you refuse to deal with Epic on principles. We don't know how many of those people you are, depending who you ask it's either half the community, or a small but very vocal majority. Another unknown is how many gamers relatively unfamiliar with the MW franchise will see MW5 on Epic's store and become interested in it, and if this number is larger than the number of people who would find MW5 on Steam. Again, depending on who you ask you get wildly different answers. Marketing is super, super complicated, and very difficult to do accurate metrics on, and was not my primary focus in school. But I don't think it is a forgone conclusion that exclusivity deal automatically = lower sales. There are variables in the equation we can't know right now, and that I think it would be very difficult to make educated guesses on.

In the larger perspective of electronic distribution of games, I can't possibly imagine how Epic becoming a meaningful competitor to Steam decreases supply. The more competition Steam faces the more pressure will be on their pricing, if they reduce pricing developers benefit, if developers benefit more people will want to develop games because it's easier to make money at it, and you end up with more games to choose from.

I agree this is a risky move for Epic, but I think they have a reasonable shot. Any time you take on an entrenched first mover it's going to be hard to unseat them. Steam has been doing distribution for a long time and is much further on the experience curve than Epic is. But even if Epic fails, the very fact someone is trying to unseat Steam will force Steam to work harder to protect their market share. We've already seen evidence of this: Steam announced late 2018 that they were changing their fee structure. Instead of always 30%, they now only take 25% on sales above $10M, and only 20% on sales over $50M. Epic started announcing they were making a play for the electronic distribution market in late 2018. Do people really think this is coincidence?

[Nesutizale]

Indeed we are missing the numbers for a good guess. Russ said he got some numbers that convinced him to go Epic and that the sales predictions are better and we have to little knowledge to judge that. SoI will take that as it is.

Quote

In the larger perspective of electronic distribution of games, I can't possibly imagine how Epic becoming a meaningful competitor to Steam decreases supply.

Oh I was talking about the time of exclusivity for MW5 not the market in general. Sure if Epic settles in and becomes another good competitor, sure that will move the market and should increase supply options. Currently the exclusive deals just seam to me as if they subtract from the market.

Epics move
Yes they have definitly run their numbers and have seen its worth the risk. While I don't like Epic for what I heard about them I will try it. Lets see how it works in practice. I gave other platforms their chance too. Some I keept others I dropped but that is the nice thing about a free market. Lots of choices, some you will keep, some will dissapear.

[Wildstreak]

So here's the thing, Epic has proven to be a bandwagon jumper supporting a game for a short period of time followed by screwing it up then abandoning it for the next best thing.

As much as I would want a modern MW, I will stick with HBS BT for now and maybe get a Titanfall product on discount but no rush.

PS - I recently read somewhere a bunch of Epic game accounts got hacked and taken over by other players of Epic games. Checked, there have been a few hacks of Epic in the past year and in a search there is even some video on how to change the password of ANY Fortnite account, that vid is a month old.

After Spring of 2018, I am done trusting Epic, nope, never again.

I do wonder if MW5 fails at some point, will assets get the Paragon treatment with similar results that are happening now?

[Nesutizale]

What is a Paragon treatment?

[Prototelis]

I'm assuming he's talking about City of Heroes.

Long story short; when NCsoft shut down City of Heroes an employee of that studio leaked; The entire source code for the client and most current version of the server, the next alpha of the server/client, most of the art assets, EVERY single custom character made on every account, and a snapshot of the servers.