Discussion MechWarrior 5 developer leaves Steam for the Epic Games Store

[Muadib]

https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/30/20747097/mechwarrior-5-mercenaries-epic-games-store-ama-russ-bullock

That means no Mech 5 for me for awhile.

 

[Rifter]

Same, well that and i think the devs suck hard so theres that too.

 

[KMFJD]

Beyond the marketing, there was clearly a profit margins motivation for Bullock and the team at Piranha. Selling through Steam would have given away 5% of revenues to Epic Games for use of its Unreal Engine and then another 30% to Valve. Meanwhile, on the Epic Games Store, his team will only owe Epic 12% in total. For a game already being developed under license, the difference is significant; more than $9 million more in profit for his team on one million units sold.


Sounds like a great deal for Piranha, no wonder people are moving to it, gamers will continue to winge however

 

[Rifter]

Beyond the marketing, there was clearly a profit margins motivation for Bullock and the team at Piranha. Selling through Steam would have given away 5% of revenues to Epic Games for use of its Unreal Engine and then another 30% to Valve. Meanwhile, on the Epic Games Store, his team will only owe Epic 12% in total. For a game already being developed under license, the difference is significant; more than $9 million more in profit for his team on one million units sold.


Sounds like a great deal for Piranha, no wonder people are moving to it, gamers will continue to winge however

This is how it works on paper, but a large contingent of my gaming friends refuse to use any platform but steam, and if the game isnt on steam they just pirate it and add exe and use steam to launch it so all their games are in one place still. Or they wait for it to go on steam after 6-12 months like they all seem to do anyways. Steam just had to much of a head start IMO.

 

[Stuka87]

The Epic store software is *SO* bad. And personally I despise the idea of Epic paying off game developers to be exclusive to their store. So while I am a huge MW fan and was tentatively looking forward to this game, I guess I will be skipping it. And I say that I was tentatively looking forward to it because I was a founder for MWO, and well, got screwed there. So I have zero trust in Piranha making a good game.

 

[KMFJD]

This is how it works on paper, but a large contingent of my gaming friends refuse to use any platform but steam, and if the game isnt on steam they just pirate it and add exe and use steam to launch it so all their games are in one place still. Or they wait for it to go on steam after 6-12 months like they all seem to do anyways. Steam just had to much of a head start IMO.

lmao pirating the game because it's not on steam....

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Moderator Aigo

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

lmao pirating the game because it's not on steam....

Why not? The same rationale works for Netflix.

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Moderator Aigo

 

[Craig234]

That means no Mech 5 for me for awhile.[/QUOTE]

While I'm glad to see devs get a more fair share of the revenue.

 

[Craig234]

The Epic store software is *SO* bad. And personally I despise the idea of Epic paying off game developers to be exclusive to their store. .

Why hate devs getting more money, and demanding that Gabe Newell get it instead for owning a monopoly platform?

 

[DeathReborn]

Why hate devs getting more money, and demanding that Gabe Newell get it instead for owning a monopoly platform?

I'm still waiting for games to decrease in price since going digital, until that happens I am not gonna be pleased with any "increase" in their cut. Couldn't care less what storefront it is personally, I just hate the money grabbing lies.

 

[Craig234]

I'm still waiting for games to decrease in price since going digital, until that happens I am not gonna be pleased with any "increase" in their cut. Couldn't care less what storefront it is personally, I just hate the money grabbing lies.

Well, when you think about it, I remember AAA games selling for $59.99 25 years ago - so they haven't really gone up in price, while development costs could have and often have. I don't see that as where the greed is. You still didn't say why you prefer Steam getting 20%-30% instead of more for the people who made the game.

 

[NTMBK]

I'm still waiting for games to decrease in price since going digital, until that happens I am not gonna be pleased with any "increase" in their cut. Couldn't care less what storefront it is personally, I just hate the money grabbing lies.

Adjusted for inflation, video games are cheaper than they've ever been. Meanwhile the costs to produce a video game are higher than they've ever been.

 

[Borealis7]

vote with your wallets. wait the 6-12 months period of exclusivity and get the game, preferably on sale, on other platforms. the dev's still get their "epic cash(tm)" plus your money, and epic might lose out on their share of the loot.

 

[JTsyo]

Adjusted for inflation, video games are cheaper than they've ever been. Meanwhile the costs to produce a video game are higher than they've ever been.

But the customer base is larger than ever. So the gaming industry is much bigger than it has ever been.
Video game revenue in 2018 reached a new peak of $43.8 billion, up 18 percent from the previous years, surpassing the projected total global box office for the film industry

Why hate devs getting more money, and demanding that Gabe Newell get it instead for owning a monopoly platform?

Problem is that it's exclusive. Why not release it into all the platforms and let people pick the one that they want to use?

 

[Stuka87]

Why hate devs getting more money, and demanding that Gabe Newell get it instead for owning a monopoly platform?

With all these new games being exclusive to the Epic store, the Epic store is buying their way into being a Monopoly. I am fine with other stores being around, and a new game showing up on all of them. Epic doesn't want this.

Steam isn't perfect, but they never blocked a dev from selling their games through other means.

 

[NTMBK]

But the customer base is larger than ever. So the gaming industry is much bigger than it has ever been.
Video game revenue in 2018 reached a new peak of $43.8 billion, up 18 percent from the previous years, surpassing the projected total global box office for the film industry

But there are also far more games out there competing for attention. Not every game can be Fortnite, with hundreds of millions of players.

Mechwarrior 5 is a revival of a pretty niche genre. There's a reason why we've not seen a bunch of high budget mech games lately! I'm sure Hi-Rez Studios could have brought out a new Earthsiege, if they thought that the market was there.

 

[BudAshes]

Adjusted for inflation, video games are cheaper than they've ever been. Meanwhile the costs to produce a video game are higher than they've ever been.

I actually agree with this, I think are games are actually underpriced at this point which is leading to all this loot box, pay to win bull shit.

 

[Rifter]

lmao pirating the game because it's not on steam....

I didnt say they were smart, but it does kinda make sense in that they all use the steam chat to communicate with each other so it make sense to have all games through steam.

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Moderator Aigo

 

[Craig234]

With all these new games being exclusive to the Epic store, the Epic store is buying their way into being a Monopoly. I am fine with other stores being around, and a new game showing up on all of them. Epic doesn't want this.

Steam isn't perfect, but they never blocked a dev from selling their games through other means.

Steam doesn't have exclusivity by licensing, but they have a near monopoly just by being 'first', just like Windows had a huge advantage not from being a better OS but simply by having everyone port to it as the standard, with other maybe afterthoughts many/most didn't port to.

AND, while you can buy on Steam, the Dev loses a lot of money when you do. They're the ones paying the 'Steam monopoly tax', not you. So, have 94% of sales on Steam who charge 20%-30% of the sales, or have a period of sales on Epic that only charges 12%, easy choice for what seems more fair to the devs and publisher.

 

[Craig234]

I think GOG Galaxy 2.0 also finally makes an effort to give people one interface for all the vendors, so you can buy on Steam or epic or gog or wherever, and play from one interface, reducing the Steam advantage?

 

[Stuka87]

AND, while you can buy on Steam, the Dev loses a lot of money when you do. They're the ones paying the 'Steam monopoly tax', not you. So, have 94% of sales on Steam who charge 20%-30% of the sales, or have a period of sales on Epic that only charges 12%, easy choice for what seems more fair to the devs and publisher.

Yeah, I know Epic currently takes a smaller cut than Valve does. And I am fine with Devs deploying to both. Its when Epic pays the dev to only deploy to their ecosystem that makes it suck for consumers. A lot of gamers have all their friends on Steam, so its easy to get match making going and such. Epic's match making system is junk, and most people aren't on it. So the timed exclusives basically just make it so people have to wait 6-12 months to play the game. Which isn't helping the dev any.

 

[DeathReborn]

Well, when you think about it, I remember AAA games selling for $59.99 25 years ago - so they haven't really gone up in price, while development costs could have and often have. I don't see that as where the greed is. You still didn't say why you prefer Steam getting 20%-30% instead of more for the people who made the game.

Adjusted for inflation, video games are cheaper than they've ever been. Meanwhile the costs to produce a video game are higher than they've ever been.

A good example would be a popular game in the UK & Europe called Football Manager, in late 2008 Football Manager 2009 cost £20 at launch physical copy, roll on to 2019 version and it's £37.99 at launch (10% off if you pre-order) with all physical copies being a steam code in the box. When the move to Digital was happening part of the sales pitch to buyers was "digital will be cheaper" but after phasing out Physical the price has gone up.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/07/10/ubisoft-explains-all-the-terrible-reasons-why-digital-games-are-so-expensive/#4c61817a49e8

That just shows why the price of digital stayed the same, it's easy to see why it stayed there too. Epic is just moving more of that profit to the developer but we lose out by being pushed to a substandard store/software ecosystem for the same high price.

 

[BudAshes]

A good example would be a popular game in the UK & Europe called Football Manager, in late 2008 Football Manager 2009 cost £20 at launch physical copy, roll on to 2019 version and it's £37.99 at launch (10% off if you pre-order) with all physical copies being a steam code in the box. When the move to Digital was happening part of the sales pitch to buyers was "digital will be cheaper" but after phasing out Physical the price has gone up.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/07/10/ubisoft-explains-all-the-terrible-reasons-why-digital-games-are-so-expensive/#4c61817a49e8

That just shows why the price of digital stayed the same, it's easy to see why it stayed there too. Epic is just moving more of that profit to the developer but we lose out by being pushed to a substandard store/software ecosystem for the same high price.

It's also no fun to have to install more of these stupid clients on my computer, remember more passwords and deal with more crap in general.

 

[zink77]

This is how it works on paper, but a large contingent of my gaming friends refuse to use any platform but steam.

LOL just like how gamers wouldn't buy mmo's (Stole rpg's) or half-life 2 with drm, if anything gamers bent over to get robbed and raped starting with ultima online in 1997. IF there's a popular game gamers will and have bent over for origin drm, uplay drm, steam drm, world of warcraft - rpg's you don't own or control...

Gamers have shown every inclination of bending over.

 

[KMFJD]

It's also no fun to have to install more of these stupid clients on my computer, remember more passwords and deal with more crap in general.

i know those 5 minutes to install egs will haunt me forever