"I Was Saved By an Epic Games Store Exclusivity Deal," Says Indie Dev

The Epic Games Store exclusivity drama continues as recently a successful indie developer promised not to "sell [their] souls" to get on the Epic Games Store. Now one dev says that this feeling isn't universal as they say they were "saved" by an Epic exclusivity deal.

[battlegrog]

Now its a games stores job to save a studio? Ya ok

[wonagebeh]

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[XiNatsuDragnel]

Ugh nope not my purchase sorry company but you delayed an death

[MadLad]

I liked the sound of the Epic store, prior to release. Something that may give Steam some real competition, and maybe help push them to offer more of a cut to developers, themselves.
Then I saw what Epic was actually doing, business wise.

Now I just want them to stop the crap, or go away. No other store pulls this crap. At most, a site like GoG has, once or twice, helped fund a game to completion, acted as publisher promoting the game, and then kept a small window of exclusivity before throwing it out to other storefronts. That's them truly acting as a publisher though.

[harmny]

Exclusivity is the only way to compete with steam.
Do you use discord? Yes. Do you like it? Yes. Does it have great features? Yes Have you ever used the discord store? Nope. Enough said. A good product is not enough.
You may not like what epic is doing but nobody had this kind of impact on the PC market in the last 15 years. They're actually fighting instead of being DOA like 90% of the stores that failed and you don't even know them

[staticall]

No, it's not (unless you're talking about games that company itself developed, like Fartnite), more features and better prices for customers is the way to compete. Look at GOG, why a smaller studio can make a better store than a huge company like Epic? User reviews, good - actually useful - product page, wishlists, social elements, discussions, sales and interesting promotions (like «buy one, get one free» and goals during sales with free games). Epic Game Store was released on 6th of December and on 11th of March they finally added search, you know, 3 months for the most basic functionality.

P. S.: Discord Game Store is in a special position - if you use Discord, you might buy the subscription (or already have one). But i don't use Discord, so i see no reason in using their store and/or buying subscription. Problem is not that their store is good or bad, but because it's only appeal to a very specific audience.

[harmny]

@staticall
I didn't say it was better. I said it was the only way epic can compete with steam. The platform is way worse for consumers (better for devs)
Gog is better than both of them. And still nobody buys from them. They are laying off people and they have no AAA games there (because of no DRM). So yes. CD projekt have a better product but they cant hurt steam. Never did.
Epic doesn't want a third or fourth place. They wanna beat steam.

[GameBoyColor]

when valve starts buying games it'll crush the competition and Epic will be the embodiment of this meme https://i.imgur.com/sohWhy9...

[Blu3_Berry]

I can understand an indie developer doing an exclusivity deal due to the small budget they may have. However, there is absolutely no reason a large AAA developer/publisher like 2K or Deep Silver needs to do an exclusivity deal. They got tons of money to support the development of their game, and its clear they are only doing it to get more money and maximize their profit. They don't give a damn about the consumers.

The whole debacle of the mega sale that the EPS is having also kinda pisses me off. Epic has said they want to pass on savings to consumers, yet publishers/developers are either making a price hike or yanking their games during the sale. The whole deal where you save $10 is very nice if you spend over $14.99. Some games like Borderlands 3 would be $40 during this promo for the consumer which is extremely generous (since it was $49.99 during the sale and adding the $10 would be $40), and the developer/publisher would still get their full money, yet they pulled the games anyway during the sale.

Pass on savings to the consumer my ass, the developers/publishers don't give a sh*t. Hardly any of them has actually done that.

EDIT: I checked the EPS to see their current sale, and alot of games that are already released are not even on sale and are full price. Games like Metro, Vampyr, Transistor, and Super Meat Boy has been out for a while, yet they are full price. The sale turned into a joke.

[rainslacker]

The thing is, the publishers and developers for a long time have been saying they need to get more for their products. EGS provides that, because they get a bigger cut. They can't raise the prices of the games themselves. Some have tried the whole DLC/MT route, to varied success, but a bigger cut on the back end can add up to a lot of money.

It's not really about passing the savings onto the customer. It never was. Even if it somehow managed to get us more content in the long run, it's not ever going to be a sudden change. The market has proven it will pay $50-60 for a new AAA game. Years of data proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. More people would buy it if it was $40-50....data suggests that as well. But, if they can sell more at a higher price, they will, as it nets them more money.

When a store sells the product cheaper than what they want, it devalues the game itself. At least in the eyes of the publishers. Sometimes, there are other legal obligations among developers or publishers which require a price to be a certain amount, so the game can't be sold for less. I'd imagine these cases are rare though, and usually involve other licensing issues. I also believe this is one reason why Amazon and Best Buy had to stop their discount programs, because some publishers felt that it was devaluing their products, and they were restricting pre-order allotment of the games themselves.

In this case, Epic should have asked these pubishers if they wanted to participate in the sale. Some may have been all for it, because they lose nothing. But others, especially for newly released or pre-order games, I could see why publishers wouldn't be on board. Their impetus isn't to promote EGS in this way, and it's not their responsibility to even have to. While you are right that the publishers don't care about actually passing on the savings, it's also their perogative to decide how much the game will sell for....something Epic took away from them.

[Rachel_Alucard]

AAA publishers still have no reason to take deals like this except pure greed. Doesn't change even if 1 out of 150 was a struggling dev.

[GameBoyColor]

You see how the second Epic tried to do a deal to benefit consumers the pubs backed out of the sale? Yeah screw them and all the people saying the devs benefit more from the buyouts LOL. Most of the devs probably didn't even know about the deal until it was announced!

[Rachel_Alucard]

Obsidian and 4A are in that exact situation. Obsidian was in the middle of adding Steam achievements to outerworlds when Private division threw this at them. They were pissed and Chris Avellone called them out on it even.

[m2stech]

This makes sense and Im glad they are helping small devs but triple A games and big companies like Ubisoft going exclusive and switching platform at the last minute is just a very greedy and anti consumer thing to do.

[AllMightyFox]

Where is the warning this is a sponsored article ??? … paid advertising ???

A "GOOD" game will sell on any platform …. and making money is all developers need

Steam allows early access, so developers can make some money to help finish production …..

saying an exclusivity deal "saved" your project is suspicious at best, and corrupt for the par....

Just another of many articles Epic has paid to have blasted all over the net (spreading propaganda)

…. Epic is just sad

[RizBiz]

I say let Epic have it. Fewer bad games clogging up Steam is a good thing.

[MadLad]

But the game actually looks like a pretty good puzzler, with a cool art design and personality. I'm 100% against Epic's store at the moment, but the game looks quality. Especially for a 1 person title.