'Borderlands 3' PC Sales Reveal An Important Truth About The Epic Games Store

From Forbes: "When Gearbox announced that Borderlands 3 would launch as an Epic Games store exclusive, the backlash was deafening, or at least it seemed like it was deafening. The combination of the already-established anti-Epic community and the particularities of the Borderlands fanbase led to a major outcry with everything we have to expect from these controversies: claims of anti-consumer behavior, conspiracy theories, review bombing and threats of boycotts. Now that the game is out, however, we can get some idea of what that actually means when it comes to sales. And, as it would turn out, not much."

[Mr_Writer85]

So either PC gamers who "boycotted" don't matter as they're a small percentage.

Or folded faster than superman on laundry day..

Whilst Epic are playing dirty, it has to be done if they're to stand any chance against Steam. They're their only direct competitors.

[DrShoe]

It reminds me of the PC gamers who were adamant that they'll boycott modern warfare 3, and still ended up buying it launch day. In that sense, it's not so surprising that they folded on borderlands 3.

[KillZallthebeast]

I really don't have any loyalty to a pc service, but one issue I have with the epic store is the anti consumer mindset. It lacks the ability to refund a game even if it launches completely broken, and also doesn't allow user reviews of any kind even for verified purchases.

[Mr_Writer85]

@killz

That, imo is a fair and reasonable gripe. However it's one that I imagine Epic will work on, they're surely not stupid enough to think only exclusively will work long term.

At some point in the near future they will have to bring up the quality of the service.

[Pyrofire95]

True on one end, there is a HUGE lack of even basic features, refunds being a pretty important one. But as of now the store is pretty curated so there's no chance a game would straight up be broken like they do on occasion with those random games on Steam.

[KillZallthebeast]

@pyro steam offers a refund xD

[generic-user-name]

Can't you just look up user reviews on other places like metacritic?

[shadowraiden]

i kinda disagree on the whole it has to be done if they want to stand any chance. no it has to be done when they dont want to invest time into making their store actually better.
they are doing this because its just easier to force exclusives onto their platform/store then spending a bit of time to make a store that not only gives dev's more money but also has more features then steam. there is plenty of features they could look into that would put them ahead of steam and make EGS a better store and guess what that would get people to move onto their store.

[pleasuretokill]

ummm... the all time peak concurrent players for Borderlands 2 was about 124,000. Meaning they had 250k players online at one time. PUBG had almost 600k online at peak today. If they would have released this game on Steam and everywhere, they would have had well over 500k online day 1. 250k for a game of that magnitude in 2019 is not really impressive. There are WAY more PC gamers now than there were in 2012. I first downloaded Steam in 2012, and I remember there were about 4-6 million people online every day in 2012. Now, in 2019, Steam NEVER drops below 9 million people. The peak today on a regular Monday was over 16 MILLION people. How many of those do you think would have been online day 1? 500k would have been bare minimum. Possibly 700k or more. 250k? Childs play in 2019 for a game like this.

[Mr_Writer85]

@pleasure

Paragraphs are your friend.

No one wants to read a wall of text.

[Christopher]

* "the all time peak concurrent players for Borderlands 2 was about 124,000"
* "they had 250k players online at one time"
* "PUBG had almost 600k online at peak today"
* "they would have had well over 500k online day 1"

Why would anyone think an extremely popular game having 124k would suddenly see a sequel match an established and online-only game ranking that is 5x greater and when both have the exact same online co-op features but lack any PvP elements, which are what tends to drive most popular MP activity in games?

None of what you just said really makes much sense. a 250k bump, which is double the peak of BL2, actually makes a ton of sense and shows an increase in co-op play on PC alone.

[pleasuretokill]

@Christopher Borderlands, as a franchise is one of the biggest AAA titles in the world. PC gaming has grown exponentially since 2012. I have the numbers for people online overall concurrently above for Steam as I have been on Steam since 2012. Going from 3-6 million people online every day to 9-16 million is an INSANE jump. So, back in 2012, BL2 had 124k people online at it's peak.

Borderlands 3 SUPPOSEDLY (this is lyin Randy we are talking about here, he has everything to gain and all the face in the world to save by lying here) had 250k online at one time. First of all I doubt he's being honest. Second of all, there are literally over 3 times as many people online on Steam everyday than there were in 2012. Do you not think that releasing on Steam and GoG and everywhere would have seen a doubling of that number? I think 500k would have been a simple, very basement bottom line. I think there would have been 10s of thousands more. But, they sold out and released on one terrible platform. Now Randy has to save face to try and make it look good (but, you notice he doesn't provide any actual numbers or proof...)

[Rachel_Alucard]

The player retention rate might not agree with the sales in the long term however.

[xVOLTx]

My reasons go beyond Epic. Randy Pitchford is a .....

[Christopher]

Randy isn't much of a person to admire let alone talk about in a good way.

But how is denying playing a game you can enjoy going to show support of the hundreds of other people who aren't Randy and made the game? You think Randy is going to lose out by a less than successful game or is it the employees under him?

[Profchaos]

But the boycott wouldn't matter at that point the article was arguing that the vocal minority were actually the ones threatening the boycott the others couldn't be bothered arguing and just carried on their way

[Rachel_Alucard]

Reminder as well, we've had many titles who sold way more then their previous entries but they went on to be financial failures because anyone who was into it already bought and nobody new was coming in. RE6, Dragon age 2, Destiny 2, and many others all sold way more at launch then their previous entries but dropped off fast. Alot of the Borderlands revenue comes from post release content and I can't see this game selling that much more then it already has due to it's issues and other factors. The people playing it now are the highest it'll ever reach until April.

[xVOLTx]

There are just some people who don't care or just don't want to do the research themselves to see how bad Epic really is.

[nyu1]

bullshit, most people who do the research wouldn't give a damn.

Epic is one of the most respected companies in game dev because of what they do with Unreal and a lot of other stuff (including just handing out money to developers for free in grants).

I don't really care about an inferior launcher, and I have a hard time buying any of the slippery slope arguments I've heard about it.

[Rachel_Alucard]

Epic is good for the industry in that it gives out funding yes but the consumer side is the one taking the piss. No surprise consumers are against it and devs love it. Publishers especially.

[MadLad]

Being a respected company doesn't make your digital store any less crap. They're just throwing around their Fortnite money; looking like jackasses in the process.

[2pacalypsenow]

You think most consumers do research?

Lmaoooooo

[Christopher]

And then there are people who make statements like this without any actual proof when what is out there is the known elements that are easily overlooked by the mass majority of people as "not an issue" but then think there's something to really research here as condemning of a company compared to their competition or other major publishers.

[Bwremjoe]

"I am right because others are wrong". Bravo sir.

[jjb1981]

I wanted the PC version, I didnt want to support Epic so I bought the PS4 version. I have a 2080 Ti and I know it would have run buttery smooth but I dont like what the Epic store is doing.

[generic-user-name]

Congrats, you played yourself. You buying the Ps4 version isn't going to make epic stop, nor should they, finally Steam has some real competition. The short sighted here can't see that competition is good, but they will one day.

[jjb1981]

Epic store is garbage. I'm tired of opening a launcher that updates everyday. I don't like their practices. I'm perfectly fine with my decision and I will never buy any timed exclusives through Epic. Steam is just the better platform overall. Unless they actually have cheaper release-day prices they're not not competing with Steam.

[chrono1205]

I didn't buy it.

[MetroidFREAK21]

All that hot wind just because of a game launcher... Lol

[CrustifiedDibbs]

why is it that people explain the issues with the epic store in every single article like this, yet there are always people like you who refuse to listen?

[Christopher]

I've listened. It's really just down to opinion-based concepts of what people want a store to be, which essentially is "Steam or GTFO" for most people. No one really has a solid argument against Epic other than they're not as good as Steam, who pretty much has a monopoly and have had over 15 years to build into what they have and have demolished all competitors to them so far. The issues with buying up content isn't an issue, it's still on PC. The issue is people wanting to use Epic at all. If Epic bought Gearbox and put all their games on their store, people would still be angry. People just want their STeam games.

[CrustifiedDibbs]

@christopher thanks for proving my point. instead of not listening, you just disregard anything you dont like, and go on with the same bs about separate launchers.

[Christopher]

***@christopher thanks for proving my point. instead of not listening, you just disregard anything you dont like, and go on with the same bs about separate launchers.***

How can I prove your point when you had nothing to listen to other than saying people don't listen to you? If you had points here, I'd read them and reply like I have a ton of times. If your base is on whether I've read your replies on this elsewhere, then you are just as much a victim of this issue as I have replied, in depth, to the complaints people have on this after having read their complaints.

So, no, no on that line of argument you're attempting to play off as me not listening to you.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

People always cry on the internet if the wind blows a certain direction. Then they retreat to their dens and play their games like good little man children.

[badz149]

LOL suckers! the game will launch later on Steam with more post launch contents and drop in prices faster than the sinking Titanic. I can wait as I only buy cheap games on Steam - the whole freakin point of PC gaming for me personally as I only got the codes, no hard copy and no resell.

btw, do you guys know you can get the Bioshock Collection for dirt cheap on Steam right now?

[GothamReturns]

Because PC gamers just want to play a good game? Anyways i didn't buy it now knowing i was only going to play it for 2 weeks before destiny's next expansion. Will get it on steam anyways.

[SlagWolf]

I didn’t buy it and none of my friends did. At least those that play on pc. I can wait till it’s on steam and $15 with all dlc. From what I’ve seen the Gabe looks pretty meh

[badz149]

how dare you speak ill about Gaben??

[spwittbold]

Just another case of "The loudest minority in the room." People were going to buy it regardless. Those that truly hold out because of distaste for a platform really just have nothing better to with their time, meanwhile, tons of people are enjoying it and ignoring the things that truly don't matter to the majority.

[AK91]

So I guess this means more Epic store exclusives, jesus I hope not

[FreeFallFrenzy]

My roommate is a diehard Steam guy and he buckled and bought it on EGS after complaining about it relentlessly. Claimed he wouldn't have time when it came out on Steam in six months due to a bunch of other stuff he wants to play at that point. Makes sense to me, but still, he buckled haha

[Bootyholetickler69]

This just show’s that boycott’s never work same thing happened with Metro Exodus it sold very well on PC despite the Epic Store exclusivity. When has a so called cry for a boycott actually ever worked?

[ShadowWolf712]

Well, if you believe the fanboys, the Metro devs totally LIED about sales to make the boycott look bad, dontchaknow.

[MadLad]

That if you force a popular new release of a loved series into one place …. it sells?
*insert surprised Pikachu meme*

When it finally releases on other stores, there will be multiples in nunber playing through all but the smallest of stores.

[Soileh]

According to Steam Charts Borderlands 2's max concurrent players was 123k (let's round that to 125k) and Randy said that those numbers were 'about' double (I would assume that means it is not double or more, so slightly less) giving us 250k rounded. As Steam Charts might not be so accurate we will further round it to 300k to be generous to Randy. So in 2019 Epic Games has reached 300k concurrent Borderlands 3 players , compared to 123k for Steam in 2019.
Now it is important to note that Steam (and therefore PC users) will have grown from 2012 to 2019. As reported the maximum concurrent players on Steam in 2012 was 6million, peaking at 18.5 October 2019 (over 300% increase), and currently at around 14.5 as of September 2019 (230% increase). Though this doesn't correlate directly to a direct userbase/sales base increase there is in fact around 2-3x more people using Steam in 2019 to 2012.

Valve also reported that there were 125million active accounts as of 2015, so in 2012 there would be less than 125, and at least 150million as of late 2017. So steam increased by 20% growth of users from 2015-2017, following a similar trend Steam could have been estimated to had around 100-110million users as of 2012, and at least around 160-170million active accounts as of 2019, giving active accounts a 70% increase 2012-2019. Even this is being generous as of 2010 Steam had 25million active accounts so the actual 2012 number is probably much lower than the 100million estimate.

Following these numbers it would be safe to estimate that Borderlands 3 would have enjoyed a sales increase based on BL2 numbers based on a 70% increase of potential buyers on steam (though this number would probably be larger it is hard to estimate) and perhaps as much as 200-300% increase due to more peak users, therefore pushing the concurrent playerbase up. This would put concurrent players if released today around at 209k with 70% increased based on larger Steam install base and upto 250k to 370k based on 200-300% increase of average concurrent users.

At 6 million concurrent users, 123k were playing Borderlands 2 at launch (2.05%) but with the concurrent users as of September 2019, if 300k people were playing Borderlands 3 that would be 2.06% of the concurrent users. So the 300k number of players would fit perfectly into the growth curve of Steam and would be applicable if the game was launched on Steam instead of Epic. It is also important to note, as mentioned above, Randy said 'about', meaning there is every reason to believe that it is not quite 2x the Steam users or he would have used more powerful language.

It is also important to note that BL3 is a different product to BL2, whereas the first Borderlands game was decent (but somewhat hit and miss, in my opinion) BL2 was a much better game due to all the upgrades it received. Buyers may have been hesistant getting BL2 after the first one, but after the success of BL2 people are now more receptive to BL3. This isn't a fact, but simply an observation that franchises tend to grow over time, ergo they acquire more players as the franchise continues.

What Randy is saying is clearly misleading, and when looking at the numbers Borderlands 3's sales on Epic (if they are around whatI calculated) just fit the trend, they aren't groundbreaking, they are AT LEAST what you would minimum expect the game to do on Steam, but also I have deliberately overestimated Epics sales and underestimated Steams growth, so I wouldn't be surprised if BL3 had released on Steam to do better than it is doing on Epic as simply there are more people playing PC, more users and more sales. Comparing 2019 sales to 2012 sales and somehow imply that the reason they're bigger is because of a platform and not just the natural growth of an industry is ridiculous.

[Christopher]

Assuming that because there are more users, not necessarily that many concurrent users in total, would equate to more people playing the game than double of what was in 2012 doesn't really hold up. By that logic, every exclusive would sell more the more consoles you sell because there are more people. That's not really how it works, though. Let alone that consoles this generation, which you ignore, have better online play and game support than in 2012 and see more game sales there for major releases than last generation.

I'm not saying these figures are great, but I think you're trying to find some stats that support your goal of wanting to try and explain how a release on STeam would have performed way better than the 250k concurrent they achieved now.

[Soileh]

Total game sales increase year on year as the whole industry/market grows. It isn't necessarily that every single game would sell more, but the total volume of sales increases. The issue is that it is implied that the Epic store somehow caused 2x sales/participation as Steam did, but this is a false equivalance as it is impossible to compared to different products at two different times, but, as demonstrated if you factor growth curves of the industry/markets into Randy's tweet you can see that it's not really outstanding that BL3 has the players it does but largely that it is as it should have been expected to be.

What I was demonstrating was that Steam when BL2 came out was smaller, used less, and had less concurrent users, which means that any potential numbers of BL3 must be scaled in ratio. Since there is no barrier to entry for the Epic store every Steam user can effectively double as an Epic user, so once again Epic didn't double Borderlands' players, but instead the numbers are reflective of the natural growth and would have been similar, if not more, if the game had released on Steam.

[Profchaos]

Sounds like it's a case of the vocal minority arguing in an echo chamber while the rest of the world just plays the games they waited years for

[terrorofdeath]

Watch Epic announce Unreal Tournament

[Enate]

They didn't share specific numbers for either Borderlands or Metro. An sales being higher initially to the tune of some unspecified number. For both games coincides with industry growth and the fact that both of the series were at their all time high. I wouldn't say the boycott didn't have a negative effect on PC sales. I just think the games were both more popular in general. Not to mention Metro was still sold to plenty of people who pre ordered on steam ahead of time.

Personally, me and about 15 others we play together often all bought the game on PS4 instead. However if it was available on steam out the gate we would of bought it there. The discord does have some people who are only PC gamers however and are rather unpredictable. So at least two people in the discord after claiming they wouldn't buy it not to do with the Epic store, ended up buying it. I am not completely opposed to the store for the same reasons as a lot of people. However with me going back and forth almost equally between our gaming PC's and PS4 Pro's. I have one thing I like above all and that is a cohesive experience.

One of the biggest turn off's for me in regards to PC gaming which I've been doing since before Y2K. Is how fragmented the experience has become over the years. Having to constantly go back and forth between several clients. With their own games, friends list, achievement systems or lack there of. Not being able to play with friends because I got it on one client instead of another even though it's the same game. So even though some of these things may not bother some people these things are huge for me and the communities I am involved in. It is not "just another client" for some of us out here, it is about more then that.

[Griff823]

Stop buying garbage, people!!!