Epic Games Store Launch Hurt PC Spending, According to NPD

Epic Games Store is contributing to PC digital sales decline across all platforms (including Steam), according to NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella.

[Amplitude]

its a little ridiculous to say out loud but i do feel the same way lol

I used to buy games on Steam all the time. Got a real good gaming PC too, but once Epic started buying off a bunch of games i wanted to play (Control, Heavy Rain, Shenmue, etc) i started to get really annoyed and started playing console more, and i definitely havent bought as much as i used to on PC. Got Control for PS4 but it was unplayable on there... torrented it, but that has the same issues as buying on EGS in the sense that you dont get all the Steam features. Never actually finished it even though i love Remedy

Its just annoying lol i do hope EGS dies soon

[Father__Merrin]

EGS won't be dying soon. Youl actually switch platform simply because of a store? Steam are ripping of devs epic are not. Its selfish to boycott as the devs will get a higher share of your purchase to go towards other projects

[KyRo]

The levels of pettiness that comes with PC gaming shows no ends. They will moan about G2A putting developers out of pocket with unofficial licences but moan when Epic gives more cash to the developers than what their rival Steam will... They then throw their toys out of their pram all because they will have to have two launchers, with two friends lists and have games on separate launchers... ON THE SAME PC! End of the world stuff apparently.

It's funny because PC gamers go on like consoles are for kids but most of the hardcore PC gamers across like man babies.

[Casepb]

If Steam is ripping off devs then so is Sony, MS, and Nintendo. They all charge the 30%.

[Vegamyster]

Very few of Epics paid exclusive 3rd party games have had sale information released, why? Probably because they didn't do well, chances are they could have made more on Steam. They're also taking the same % that other companies take, it was just a PR move.

KyRo

People don't like the Epic Store because it's bare bones and they're paying developers to keep there games off the competitions launchers, they're the only ones doing this and no one has an issue with Origin, Uplay or other launchers in general. How you turned that key point into a rant about the PC user base i don't know, this is not good for the community because Valve or EA ect could easily do the same thing and ruin any competition from smaller companies.

[UltraNova]

@Casepb

Not applicable. Console Publishers have to support their platform so a higher cost of entry (30%) is not illogical, whereas Steam is just a digital store available for free to anyone that wants to download it and start spending money. Also, Valve doesn't have to develop and support any hardware platforms and the risk that comes with it, they only need to worry about their digital store.

[Reefskye]

Edit @axecution, agreed most people don't have a clue what their talking about, I don't buy games off epic by princable, why I stopped aying unreal tournament from their launch, consoles charge just as much as steam so how is steam the bad guy? I mean if steam was so bad u still wouldn't get devs making games in UE4 and publishing solely on steam still, steam offers developers Far more utility to the store page than epic could ever dream of, steam supports mods (steam workshop) what other launcher had any features like steam? None at all. Steam had better services better user interface better social abilities better dev tools better network servers Al over the world all these thing cost money if epic asked for 30% that would be a rip off because they don't offer nothing compared to steam

No console gamer can even critise steam cos the PlayStation store and xbox store and rip off £70-80 for a standard game no thanks.

Disagree all you like but no store offers anything close to what steam offers, am not even a steam fan boy I use every launcher, but I didn't buy games for Windows Live on princable (am not paying to play online) and I won't buy off epic because they don't actually make games they just made a shitty launcher and bought exclusives and expect me to just run to them to buy games. PC gaming had remained open because of the community stance. If consoles players actually stood up and didn't sub, playstation now and xbox live wouldn't be a thing but like everything on consoles people buy what they told like sheep, so slate anyone who critises steam man babies when in fact most people r shitty consumers and buy what they told

[jeromeface]

Steam is charging for their market share and far superior, feature rich browser. Epic is just throwing around unreal 4 money and it will eventually run out.

[bishup25]

I predict that the epic store will make more changes in the future.
so it's not that big of a deal to me. it being said, it's their platform to support.
everyone spends their money how they want to.

[Tech5]

Epic also recycles some of their profits into dev grants. creating more new projects that are given chances to be successful. so it's not that bad for pc gaming actually.

[Larrysweet]

I love epic

[DevilOgreFish]

@ FishTank

Sony has the largest stake in the company. Microsoft has a couple games.
NetherRealm's entire list of games also consists of Epic partnerships.
so long as these top performing companies make yearly partnerships, Epic will continue to expand.

[LightofDarkness]

@DevilOgreFIsh

Tripe. Epic is 48% owned by Tencent, the rest (controlling shares) owned by Tim Sweeney.

[Rebel_Scum]

Yeah lets all hope that there’s less competition. cos that works in everyone’s best interest.

/s

[Retroman]

I'm sure you don't mine..........Rest in peace Kobe Bryant we lost a good player.

[darthv72]

Sounds really petty to hold a grudge against a digital retailer. Who really doesnt shop around to find what they are looking for? Some stores get the lock on things but that doesnt keep me from buying.

[Rebel_Scum]

Cancel culture is the worst

[Blu3_Berry]

I think that at least for me personally, there are a few things that kinda negatively impacted the PC gaming marketplace.

1) Epic Game's aggressive timed-exclusive deals. Not much needs to be said as this has been talked to death already, but Epic taking all these 3rd-party games as a timed exclusive really hurt the chances of picking some of the games up. I was really interested in a few games, but unfortunately took the Epic year exclusive route and I lost interest in it either because I didn't care for it anymore or that the Epic deal rubbed me the wrong way.

2) Alot of ports released on PC this year ran like dogsh*t, some that come to mind immediately are Red Dead Redemption 2 and Monster Hunter World Iceborne. These games had easily 8+ months to be worked on for PC to make sure it runs smoothly. When they released, it was downright unplayable and broken for majority of people. There is absolute no excuse for that.

3) Publishers getting greedy and making poor decisions. Bethesda is a huge offender here, as several of their games released in 2019 had microtransactions in a single-player game such as RAGE 2 and Wolfenstein Youngblood. Not to mention they are charging a $100 year 1 pass for Fallout 76. It's is utterly stupid and that needs to go away. Other offenders include the Epic Games Store timed exclusivity (which I already mentioned).

4) Delays. Some games were delayed from 2019 to 2020 but that is to be expected.

I'm certainly not speaking for everyone here, only for myself. Some of these things did impact my spending on PC and I actually decided to go back to some older games instead. I'm hoping 2020 will be a better year.

[jaymacx]

I would say #2 on your list is because of Denuvo. RDR2 probably has so much going on just to protect it from being cracked that it hurts performance. It's one of the reasons I buy most games now on console. I used to buy so many games on Steam before all this denuvo mess. For me it started with Batman Arkham Knight.
I know it isn't just Denuvo. It is also just lazy ports.

[xTonyMontana]

Very good post and reflects my views too. I'd add Blizzard's fall from grace to the list though. Granted that started a lot longer but it was painfully obvious throughout most of 2019.

[Blu3_Berry]

Omg yes, how'd I completely forget that I dunno. They're just as bad as some other publishers. I think the reason why I forgot was because I never buy anything from Blizzard.

[FlyingFoxy]

I think this is why i preferred the late 90's and early 2000's of PC gaming, we had Game Spy and Wireplay, both with simple interfaces that allowed you to chat in lobbies and go in servers of games you own easily, and no restrictions with who you can play with.

That and games that had multiplayer would have their own MP interface, like Worms 2 had a lobby where you could create your own room & game and stuff.

Now we are starting to have different places to buy our stuff meaning multiple services running at the same time. I wonder if that means it introduces cross play issues?

[Vits]

Well, it sure helped me save a couple of bucks as I didn't bought any of the games that they got the exclusive rights to.

[INMATEofARKHAM]

Same. I have too many games so it was nice to thin the herd.

[slavish0]

Capitalism. Steam needs to compete to affect the market in another direction

[Terry_B]

Hey Epic..are you okay?

[Christopher]

I think gaming spending in general decreases in the last two years of a generation with some outliers. I don't see this attached to EPG at all. PC gamers aren't buying as many PC games in general and consoles sales are way more competitive with PC sales.

[CBaoth]

PCs don't have generations. Consoles do. So I don't see the correlation. In fact Matt Piscatella thinks most hybrid gamers are purchasing more games on consoles than PCs due to the division caused by Epic. I agree console sales have been far more aggressive this gen. It has definitely impacted PC sales recently. But I offer one caveat most gamers refuse to acknowledge:

Quite simply PC gaming has sucked from 2010 to 2019. The 80's, 90's, and early 2000's were all FAR better periods. Valve hasn't made a game in 7 years, Blizzard would rather be in bed with the Chinese government, and Epic thinks buying exclusivity IS competition. The only triple AAA exclusive with a budget above 50 million is a crowd funded title. Something's rotten in Denmark, and while I obviously don't condone Epic's strategy, I think it's a little short sighted to blame Epic too.

[Christopher]

***PCs don't have generations.***

Correct, but delays on consoles happen on PC as well. So, consoles affect PC gaming in a big way with such things. The correlation is that companies develop for release on all platforms at once, not just whichever can be done first and then the next one(s).

Additionally, limitations of console hardware tend to also limit PCs in many ways, especially as far as gameplay elements.

[rainslacker]

It has overall. I don't think it was because of EGS. While it's made some headlines, it was only a blip on the radar when it comes to number of game releases, and less than a blip for the number of games that had the exclusive contention behind it.

In this case, the right information led to the wrong conclusion, and the decrease in spending is likely because the last couple years hasn't been as strong with big releases like the decade or so before.

[Seafort]

The decrease in spending is due to games being ripped from Steam store a month or 2 from release and made exclusive to Epic store.

Many people are waiting for the steam release and not buying on Epic store.

I waited for Hades to come to Steam instead of buying it on Epic Store and I will be waiting for the rest of the timed exclusive games to come to either Steam or GoG and then buy them.

Epic aren't just making indie and AAA games exclusives they are taking kickstarter backed games and making them exclusive to their store as well. I had to refund Phoenix Point, which I backed, as I will never condone Epic's business practices.

The more games Epic make exclusive the worse this will get. I see a downturn from one year to the next. I bet 2020 is a good year for PC as the Epic exclusives come back to Steam and people buy them in their droves.

Competition is good but Epic Store is not competition. It's the complete opposite.

[ShrektheHulk]

Hades is on Steam right now and glorious

[Chaos-Dad]

Epic Store is Sh*t... no Community Features, no Achievements but the same Price for Games... its a waste of money there. Steam and the new Xbox App on Win10 are so much better for Gaming & Community.

[mezati99]

i will NEVER buy anything from that shitfest of a store lol, it lacks even the goddamn basic stuff

only reason it's installed on my PC is because of the free shit they give

[Rachel_Alucard]

Yeah, why buy games when Epic just gives them out every other week.

[Profchaos]

Sometimes I feel having to many stores each with their exclusive content hurts PC gaming. Sometimes it's better competition and can lead to better pricing but other times it seems like it can hurt and lead people back to piracy harming everyone in the long term.

In a way it's like streaming Netflix made things simple and a noticeable drop in piracy occured but a few years later everyone started to see how much money they were bringing in and wanted a piece of the streaming pie so we now have Disney plus, HBO, Hulu etc.

It's like valve made steam and piracy dropped through the floor no one was really doing it anymore and of became a viable platform again Devs actually began to care again about the PC release as opposed to just obligatory poor ports with minimal options circa 2005. Then a million store fronts pop up Uplay steam, epic etc and it just behind to hurt it

I think we need a unified platform that can connect to all store fronts and list all your games to help battle this market split.

[SegaGamer]

"I think we need a unified platform that can connect to all store fronts and list all your games to help battle this market split"

Well it's your lucky day, because I can tell you that it exists. The beta of GOG Galaxy 2.0 has recently been made available to everybody. If you want a unified platform to connect all launchers with your lists of games, then this is it. I have every single one of my launchers synced to it. Steam, Epic, Uplay, Origin, Twitch, and you can even add games that aren't tied to any launcher. It keeps track of play time and achievements, it even adds your friends lists from multiple platforms. It's still got a few bugs here and there, but it works, and it works well.

GOG Galaxy 2.0 is the reason why my dislike for having so many launchers has cooled in recent times.

[Profchaos]

Oooh downloading it as soon as I can

[ninsigma]

Brilliant. Thanks for that. def will be downloading tonight!

[Rebel_Scum]

There is already a product out there that syncs all your games, contacts, achievements etc into one app. Google it.

[RazzerRedux]

I guess these PC stores are going to have to do something that helps generate more revenue. Competition is a great thing.

"While there were obviously other platforms in the PC marketplace like GreenManGaming..."

Incorrect. GreenManGaming is not a platform. It is key reseller for other platforms.

[1nsomniac]

What a load of shite! PCs thriving more than ever and everything that’s going on in the industry proves that unquestionably. Epic store hasn’t stopped sales at all other than giving away free indy games. Which seems to be really winding people up the wrong way.

[rainslacker]

Spending has been down the past couple years, but it's not because of the EGS. The number of people upset about the exclusives is a small portion of the market and wouldn't be enough to register a significant enough decrease to say that spending is way down. The data is right here, as general as it is, the conclusion NPD came to is not.

[NeoGamer232]

The problem, again is exclusivity.

I know the Epic Games Store is free and all, but my PC gaming profile is on Steam. If a game doesn't come t Steam I just don't buy it on PC.

[DigitalDaniel]

I don't like the aggressive approach Epic got in regards to grabbing exclusives. On consoles that makes sense to have exclusives as they're making up for selling hardware at loss and cost of R&D. This is not the case with the PC platform, so unless it's a game they made there's no reason for exclusivity.
I don't download the freebies from Epic either as it doesn't make sense to me boycotting them AND grabbing the free stuff. People can do whatever they like, it's their business. That I vote with my wallet is my business. I welcome competition, but I don't see any benefits using Epic launcher over Steam or even Origin. Even Microsoft has acknowledged that pushing games only on their own platform isn't good business sense and will sell their games on Steam in the future. If Epic wants me over to their platform it should be because it's better than the competition, not because they're buying exclusives with their Fortnite money.

[tontontam0]

Lol steam fanboys twisting facts, it is not due to epic, it is due to those steam fanboys who refuse to buy games on epic store.

"Keep it up steam fanboys kill pc gaming."

[Rachel_Alucard]

There is no Steam fanboys it's just people shitting on a bad storefront. It'd be more embarrassing to see Epic fanboys, since they only exist out of spite.

[calactyte]

Game developer here. Epic Games Store is a godsend. I get that people are annoyed about the purchase of exclusives but EGS is absolutely allowing my little dev studio to make a game where we normally wouldn't make enough profit for it to be worth doing this at all. Also on Steam there is so much competition (iOS has this same problem) so its hard and mostly not worth it.

At the start of any game project you run a profit and loss analysis. The cut that Steam, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft takes from Devs is pretty outrageous. Even Oculus store follows the same business model. Now on consoles you can actually make money because the competition is less.

Bottom line you need to be a triple AAA studio if you hope to make money on PC. PC is also the easiest platform to develop for. So we have a situation where the most creative indy game studios mostly won't bother making games anymore.

Enter Epic Games, who see this and would rather give devs a place where they can make a profit. Honestly without EGS it wouldn't be worth making our game for PC at all. We would just raise enough money to sell on Switch where people support indie devs 5x more than anywhere else.

[Rachel_Alucard]

You are exaggerating with needing to be AAA to make money on PC. You ignored the fact that the top played and bought games on PC were not AAA. Hades is enjoying it's largest playerbase increase since launch on EGS ever could produce and many other indies and AA also produce profit.

You need to learn to be content with making enough to support the studio over making millions over in profit like you see with the handful of flukes. The way the indie scene is functioning right now is leading themselves to be in business for only a few years at a time. This is less to do with cuts and more to do with the studio going overboard on their budget vs projected revenue. Hiring too many people, spending years in development, spending too much in advertising like paying streamers to play your game, and many other factors. The stores taking too much of a cut is the least part of the problem.

If you think 30% is too much now you should've been in the industry back when retail stores controlled the PC market and took 65% of the profit.

Fun fact. 3 studios still shut down even when they did the exclusivity contract that gave them financial security. They shut down before they could even release on other platforms with Human Head shutting down the day before release of Ruin 2.

[calactyte]

No I am not exaggerating. Games on Steam don't make money. EGS actually advertises and promotes the games on their game store.

Ok look this is going to be a case of your opinion against mine so I will leave this here for you and others to watch.

https://youtu.be/WycVOCbeKq...

As for studios getting exclusivity and still going out of business I can only say you are making a correlation and saying it is causation. I don't think one can really say that receiving exclusivity money from Epic games actually increased the chance that said company would go out of business. Also you mentioned 3 studios that went out of business but how many were saved because of it? I bet that number is higher.

[Rachel_Alucard]

You are linking a video that is filled with estimates and collects all the data and presents it as an absolute. The entire point of the talk is the stats but he doesn’t once explain how he arrived at them. It does not look at how much a game cost to make and release or anything else other then price of a game and he uses user numbers that are not accurate from Steamspy, as Steamspy only tracks public profiles while the default is set to private and the presenter has no access to Steam's actual data. He also states: the average games makes X amount a year and can therefore not sustain someone. He then admits that he doesn’t know if people made their games while concurrently working full time. He also makes no indication that he took development time into consideration. If I release a game each week and make $30k each then I’ll do great! It's not that the game's don't make money, it's that many think they need to be making massive profit over what they spent every time.

EGS does not promote games outside of their own social media accounts which would require the user to actually be following in the first place. If they did promote all their exclusives, I wouldn't see this crap on Metacritic https://puu.sh/F49Su/0f41a4...
It's been there since June and no picture from metacritic or even any attention outside of 6 ratings and 1 user review.

The number of studios saved was never a concern, because these companies that signed on were under no threat of bankruptcy considering they were developing under a publisher and way before EGS was a thing. The only thing that EGS does is provide financial security but it does nothing to stop them from shutting down regardless if they're business was not sustainable, which is not the store's fault. Many indie games have too much money, effort, and people involved put into it only to be releasing to a small audience. This is not a smart thing to do as a studio. If the people making the games were more realistic with their projections vs reality, then so many wouldn't be struggling to find a place in the market.

I urge you to watch this man explain things better since he's had an indie studio since 1994 and never felt the threat of bankruptcy or shutting down despite how terrible the games present to a casual player. No indie studio has lasted as long as he has.
https://youtu.be/stxVBJem3R...

[porkChop]

What? They're are plenty of reasons that PC spending would be down. To blame it on one store is just ridiculous.

[Teflon02]

See my big problem
- no achievements (when I realized how well it was done on Steam I was okay switching from PS4 to PC as they give me more to do in games I love)
- Community features is one thing I learned to love on Steam and wished it was as well done on PS4. Though it's a decent start.
- as far as I see, I can get better prices on Steam releases. It's funny, because Epic store everything releases at $79.99 CAD and you barely get a sale (exclusives). While Steam releases you can always get wit good discounts and usually not at a full game price. I usually save atleast $20 vs a PS4 release. Epic nope.
- I don't support the BS they do. Buying exclusives to that lesser store when I want to 100% games achievements lol. Nope.

I haven't bought a single game that allowed itself to be bought out by epic. Won't buy anything on the store either. If I ever use it would be to play a Epic Games created game. I'm not against devs having their own store though it's getting annoying. But I'm not okay with the crap Epics doing and Shenmue was the last straw. I just didn't like it before that. But that was where they crossed the line and I don't 100% blame Them for that. It's moreso the creators issue. But yeah, if they're doing that. I can't support. The stores trash anyways.

But my biggest issues with all these stores. I hate having a bunch. I only auto launch steam because those will all together start affecting the PC when they decide to download updates etc at the same time. But even worse. I literally forget every game I buy that's outside of Steam. Like I forgot I bought MW and haven't played since the first month. Been meaning to go back to Overwatch but keep forgetting because I don't launch blizzard. Same with BF and Origin. I have a few Ubi games and literally NEVER launch that store lol. So those games end up losing so much value for me

[Rebel_Scum]

Cant believe you value achievements so much.

[XBox4eva69]

Epic is cancer.

[TheColbertinator]

EGS isn't particularly special to be fair. It's just another launcher on the PC market.

However my personal favorite games to play are on Steam and Origin. Haven't booted up EGS to play anything apart from their free games.

[BrainSyphoned]

I have a 600+ game backlog on Steam and won’t buy from Epic. Outer Wilds/Worlds hitting game of the year is kinda pathetic for them. I can name Obsidian of course but the other developer.....nope don’t care.

[AK91]

Wait but didn't EGS make a ton of money? I'm getting conflicting reports here.

[ARESWARLORD]

Fake News

[Orionsangel]

EPIC Games Store is here to stay! Too bad you whiners! Steam needed this wake up call!

[maelstromb]

A little competition never hurt anyone... except until it undercuts profits. I don't believe that it's Epic Games' approach which has caused the consternation in the PC gaming community, but it definitely throws a wrench in the way in which PC gaming has generally worked for decades... which is what I believe truly annoys people. Think about it - Exclusivity is mostly an accepted thing in the console gaming market... it's NOT a thing in the PC market mainly b/c PCs have always been created equal from a "platform" perspective, regardless of hardware irregularities. That said, hardware similarities and differences are literally one of the only aspects which physically separates MS Xbox from Sony Playstation from Nintendo Switch, etc... otherwise, they mine as well be the same platform just like PC.

However, the TRUE difference in the console gaming market lies in 1. Branding and 2. Exclusive content. Those are the two defining factors. And Epic games has ferociously tapped into the exclusivity component on the PC side - this in turn has caused frustration and, in some, blatant anger radiating from people within the PC community. And for good reason since we PC gamers haven't had to put up with this type of console-ish behavior ever before while we've all gotten used to Steam as the place where we go to purchase and play our PC games. But guess what? Nothing stays the same forever and for good reason. Valve pretends to play the white knight and savior of all PC gaming, but as we've all born witness over the last 15+ years it has been around, it's not always the truth no matter how much Valve would have you believe it. So I think it goes without saying that competition is a healthy thing from time to time and we as gamers stand to benefit. Epic's "free game a week" is a prime example of their willingness to win over PC gamer's loyalty (albeit a slightly insidious way of buying our love) BUT it also represents a perfect example of how we as gamers win in this game of competition, as well (even if the effects may be short-term)... don't you think?

Though, for those still not convinced and as a bit of a side note to this discussion, I think a lot of you can quit your complaining now that CD Projekt has officially launched the new GOG beta redesign which officially (and FINALLY!!) allows you to link ALL your gaming clients (Steam, Playstation, Epic, Uplay, Origin) and your game libraries directly into GOG - into ONE client! Weary of having to manage multiple game clients? Start using GOG. Also, if you think this new massive GOG update is coincidental, think again. This is likely a planned upgrade as they enter the final months prior to launch of Cyberpunk and this represents a significant move as CDPR takes the company to the next monumental step.

[Max_Eckhardt]

Epic have driven me back to console. I’ll be buying either the PS5 or Xbox this year because I can’t stand Epic.

[RazzerRedux]

That doesn't make any sense. Consoles are just as bad when it comes to exclusives. No one is forcing you to use EGS. So what is forcing you back to consoles again?

[Endyo]

One part of this, Epic's revenue, I think is important. It's already tough to consider self-reported values, but what's weird is that we don't know the net profit or what ratio is just Fortnite. $680 million sounds like a lot, but if a large portion of that is Fortnite's PC sales ($1.8 billion in total sales for 2019) then does it really matter? Also, considering they've given away 73 games and compensated the publishers/developers for that, that has to cut into the potential profit as well.

From my perspective, I think Epic is losing tons of cash trying to build this store and pumping out pretty numbers based on player count (boosted by free games) and gross revenue (boosted by Fortnite sales).

But in reality, what probably lowered PC sales more is the massive growth of subscription services. Getting 100+ games with Game Pass and a bunch more with Origin Access - in particular, new releases - for cheap is more impressive than 73 older titles.

[RazzerRedux]

It is a good point. I would love to know how much revenue in PC gaming is being redirected via subscriptions.

[kitano1947]

For games with publishers the meme that devs get "ripped off" from steam is a joke. Steam takes 30% from the publisher, devs are paid hourly by the publisher. They are paid already, they are not losing anything.

[Orionsangel]

I hate to quote Patcher but some of you really are babies. A new game store comes along and you lose your minds? I just wanna play the game. I don't care where I play it. The free games are just the icing on top.

[skyrimer]

There are a few games on EGS that I want to buy but I won't support PC exclusives that are not from their own developer stores (like origin, rockstar or uplay), so I simply pass on buying them. The thing is since exclusives last for a year, those games are old news when they arrive to Steam and usually there're new and cooler games around, so some of those that reach Steam after a year simply don't hold my interest anymore. Also since I don't have any sympathy for the devs that do this exclusive deals, I'm happy to wait for a ridiculous sale on Steam to grab them, if I still care for them at all.