Monday, September 23rd 2019
Exclusivity Costs: EPIC Games Store's Control Cost $10.5 million to Become PC Exclusive
Control is one of the better single player releases of this year already, and has been enough of a success for Remedy and 505 Games to launch a content roadmap stretching all the way to 2020. The game is being served on PC exclusively through the EPIC Games Store, which, besides offering developers higher revenues than Steam, has also launched an all-out campaign to secure high-profile exclusives such as Control and Metro: Exodus (even if some of them are timed exclusives).
Now, an Italian earnings report from 505 games highlights that the developers received a lump, $10.5 million upfront from EPIC; according to the report, "Revenue comes from the computer version of Control (...) The game was released on August 27 but the structure of the marketplace who requested the PC exclusivity has made possible to gain the revenue starting from this quarter." It appears EPIC is offering a safety net for developers in exchange for the exclusivity deals, paying upfront the amount of revenue developers expect to receive from the games' sales throughout the PC platform. In this case, the $10.5 million correspond to a total of 200,000 individual sales of Control. Until that number is achieved, EPIC keeps the full revenue from every sale. Any units sold starting from 200,000, and the revenue is split between the developer and EPIC. It's a win-win, really: EPIC gets more and more traction and publicity on its store, and developers guarantee they get the minimum amount they'd expect to earn by selling the game across the full spectrum of PC marketplaces.
Source:
Ars Technica
Now, an Italian earnings report from 505 games highlights that the developers received a lump, $10.5 million upfront from EPIC; according to the report, "Revenue comes from the computer version of Control (...) The game was released on August 27 but the structure of the marketplace who requested the PC exclusivity has made possible to gain the revenue starting from this quarter." It appears EPIC is offering a safety net for developers in exchange for the exclusivity deals, paying upfront the amount of revenue developers expect to receive from the games' sales throughout the PC platform. In this case, the $10.5 million correspond to a total of 200,000 individual sales of Control. Until that number is achieved, EPIC keeps the full revenue from every sale. Any units sold starting from 200,000, and the revenue is split between the developer and EPIC. It's a win-win, really: EPIC gets more and more traction and publicity on its store, and developers guarantee they get the minimum amount they'd expect to earn by selling the game across the full spectrum of PC marketplaces.
129 Comments on Exclusivity Costs: EPIC Games Store's Control Cost $10.5 million to Become PC Exclusive
The whole win-win situation with devs and 'good games' surely came later. Its not what the business case rides on, anyway. Its just how it gets supported and maintained, and how it gets explained to us.
Unreal Engine in fact did push a similar button for devs, enabling them more easily with its business model. Epic's true goal, ever since they opened UE is to get a piece of the pie from stuff others produce. Not too different from Valve/Steam at all... so again, let's not portray Sweeney as the New Gabe. Its just yet another middle man, albeit a cheaper one. Is it really a compromise though. Everywhere, like literally everywhere in business do you see exclusivity in all shapes and sizes. From having a special color pants to socks with unique print, to...you name it. And what do we do when we see an item they ONLY sell at store Y? We visit store Y and buy it.
I'm still struggling to understand why this is seen as 'forced exclusive' within gaming, and how its somehow a problem all of a sudden... But I'm a strange guy.
Epic didn't play anything particular role in this other than bribing to make them accept their policies, those good games could've launched on steam and have 5 times the playerbase they have on EGS.
If you have different sales numbers please do share, because obviously a large number of people would rather play Control than play a gaming store/launcher. Games are nearly always more fun than a launcher. And any conjecture of how successful the game would be outside of EGS is just that: conjecture.
If people would sit down and take egs for what it is (help for developers) then they could realize how silly their charade is.
It's not like that paying more programmers or designers will make their brain instantly gain skills or even new ideas, so yeah, silly you, definitely.
Now, Epic comes in and says: "Hey, we are going to take all the risk of developing this game away. All you need to do is sit down and hire the best people and focus on making a great game."
Assuming you have a job, if you have the opportunity to take all the stress, risk, and other shit that you likely aren't good at, would you take it? I sure as shit would.
Oh well i didn't know quality of videogames was directly tied to how much money there is, maybe because it's not, and AAA titles from the last decade (actually even more) are proof of that.
And for AAA budgets, guess what much of that is? Yep, advertising.
Yeah everything goes to advertising, go sleep man you're making no sense, AAA titles suck because they want to sell to the masses and put close to no effort in particulars, contents, polishing and testing - advertising changes little for sagas that everyone knows they only need a regular amount, and that doesn't cost nearly as close as the costs of production for the thing.