In recent months, Epic Games has attempted to bring attention to their Epic Games Store by obtaining high-profile games as timed exclusives to their platform. Publishers of titles like Metro Exodus, Borderlands 3, Shenmue III, Detroit: Become Human, and many, many more, agreed to six-to-twelve-month-long contracts with Epic, ensuring that their games would launch first on the EGS. Securing games would obviously cost Epic some amount of money, and considering their success with Fortnite, it's clear that the company has copious amounts of cash to throw around, but the finer details as to just how much Epic was spending has never been officially divulged.

But, thanks to a newly published earnings report, we might have some insight into the lengths Epic is willing to go to, to bolster the exclusive content for their storefront. Digital Bros, the Italian parent company of 505 Games, and publisher of the recent Remedy-developed Control, disclosed in the report that Epic had paid them 9.49 million Euros for timed exclusivity rights to Control. The payment took place back in June, prior to the August 27th release date of the game. Considering that it was officially stated by Remedy that their budget for Control was in the ballpark of 20-30 million Euros, this is a significant amount of money paid for the game.

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[Xzi]

developers need to secure funding for their games by any means necessary

Give me a break. AAA devs/publishers are not strapped for cash, and indies already had Kickstarter/crowdfunding as an option. It's doubly pathetic when a game is successfully crowdfunded only to turn around and go Epic exclusive anyway.

PC gamers need to get over the childish notion that if a game isn't on Steam then it doesn't exist.

When a third-party game launches exclusive to any one storefront, for all intents and purposes it's always going to be nonexistent to a portion of PC gamers. Only short-sighted publishers are willing to limit their game's exposure, especially at a time when there are too many new launchers to keep up with.

yes, their launcher is trash and they're effectively a front for Tencent. So what? I really struggle to care, playing good video games is a bigger priority to me than cloud saves.

Which makes piracy all the more appealing; you get to play the good games without the inconveniences and security concerns of a half-assed launcher.

 

[Foxi4]

Give me a break. AAA devs/publishers are not strapped for cash, and indies already had Kickstarter/crowdfunding as an option. It's doubly pathetic when a game is successfully crowdfunded only to turn around and go Epic exclusive anyway.

When a third-party game launches exclusive to any one storefront, for all intents and purposes it's always going to be nonexistent to a portion of PC gamers. Only short-sighted publishers are willing to limit their game's exposure, especially at a time when there are too many new launchers to keep up with.

Which makes piracy all the more appealing; you get to play the good games without the inconveniences and security concerns of a half-assed launcher.

That's nice and 'imma let you finish, but the same arguments you're using to throw shade at Epic are the arguments console gamers use to praise their systems - exclusive titles with good funding from the hardware's manufacturer. Installing the Epic client costs you nothing, you're cutting off the nose to spite the face. Exclusive titles in general, on PC and on consoles, are anti-consumer, but the fact that they're an effective way to market the software or hardware they're tied to is a foregone conclusion. Principles are very nice, but they don't have particularly good gameplay. You can carry on not playing Epic exclusives if you wish, I support your choice to vote with your wallet, but considering the fact that the cost of not having this conundrum is zero, it naturally comes across as silly.

 

[Taleweaver]

Maybe if they invested even a tenth of that amount into their storefront, it wouldn't be so shitty that their fanbase has to compare it to Steam circa 2003.

I'm all for drawing in customers, but this is indeed pushing things. And for what? A new ip that at best becomes a sleeper hit in about a year or so.

Sure, epic is improving their store...at a snails pace. If they invested their money in the store, it'd be a much better investment in the medium and (especially) long run.

 

[Xzi]

the same arguments you're using to throw shade at Epic are the arguments console gamers use to praise their systems - exclusive titles with good funding from the hardware's manufacturer.

The irony being that third-party exclusivity was dying out almost entirely across all platforms prior to Epic taking up that mantle. Microsoft has decided to commit all future titles to PC, leaving only first-party stuff and in-house developers as exclusive to PS4/Switch.

Installing the Epic client costs you nothing, you're cutting off the nose to spite the face.

Being free is not a compelling reason to install Epic's software any more than it's a compelling reason to install Limewire.

You can carry on not playing Epic exclusives if you wish, I support your choice to vote with your wallet, but considering the fact that the cost of not having this conundrum is zero, it naturally comes across as silly.

Hey now, nobody said anything about not playing the games that interest me. The way I see it, Timmy Tencent already paid for my copies.

 

[Engezerstorung]

exclusive titles with good funding from the hardware's manufacturer.

well, that's actually the problem here: EPIC ISNT FUNDING, they throw money once the game is done
the difference is that the game is already done, and they can judge it finished/close to be finished, they arent taking risk (about the quality of the game)
funding is taking a risk to make an idea happen, here its not, they are just throwing money once the studio already took the risk themselves, its kind of if they are "leeching" on a 90% certain success, they are not sponsoring game production, they just hope to secure the juicy cut they can get from the sales
so no, its have nothing to compare to console exclusives... (except if you compare it to the era when microsoft was doing the same thing as epic and a lot of people were pissed, like they are now)
and from what i see, the games basically end up having less success (on pc) because people are pissed of this EGS tactic

if epic was actually funding production there would be no problems... (at least with me)

 

[Foxi4]

well, that's actually the problem here: EPIC ISNT FUNDING, they throw money once the game is done
the difference is that the game is already done, and they can judge it finished/close to be finished, they arent taking risk (about the quality of the game)
funding is taking a risk to make an idea happen, here its not, they are just throwing money once the studio already took the risk themselves, its kind of if they are "leeching" on a 90% certain success, they are not sponsoring game production, they just hope to secure the juicy cut they can get from the sales
so no, its have nothing to compare to console exclusives... (except if you compare it to the era when microsoft was doing the same thing as epic and a lot of people were pissed, like they are now)
and from what i see, the games basically end up having less success (on pc) because people are pissed of this EGS tactic

if epic was actually funding production there would be no problems... (at least with me)

Do you think that the money goes up in smoke if the game is complete, or do you think it becomes integrated into the payroll? It doesn't "disappear", it's part of the overall budget.

 

[smilodon]

If people really cared about their game storefront, they would already have switched to GoG. Steam is barely better than Epic.

 

[Jiehfeng]

This makes me wonder, if Undertale was bought as an exclusive, would it have been as popular as it is?

 

[Engezerstorung]

yeah but you need to have money in the first place to start somwhere, funding give you this money and allow you to go further, bought back pay you back some money you had and invested yourself
one situation is investing into idea while taking risk, the other is just buying a finished product
so it doesnt "help make game happen and distribute it exclusively on our platform to get some gain on our investment", and its "buying a finished product to restrict it to our platform"

but we could argue that this buying will make the money go into the budget for a futur game
well in this situation you only end up "delay funding" developpment team that are already succefful enought to start on their own, you wont help promisint future team that need help to start
and in all game they bought like that, they would have sold enought anyway, its just "extra cash", not life and death funding.
so extra cash for already succefull product (and its because they will be succeful that epic buy them)
so in the end its just pure "capitalism", and not a "philantrophic way of helping gaming industry better itself and funding new and promizing games "like they try to sell it to us

 

[Xzi]

If people really cared about their game storefront, they would already have switched to GoG. Steam is barely better than Epic.

I've bought games on pretty much every storefront. GOG, Battle.net, uPlay, hell even Origin. I gave EGS a chance too...back when they were still interested in developing Unreal Tournament and focusing on their first-party titles like Shadow Complex. When they gave up on UT to instead make their employees work 80 hour weeks on Fortnite, and they announced they were gonna start securing third-party exclusives, that's when I decided I needed to uninstall and delete my account. The constant e-mail alerts that people were trying to break into my account (despite it only having free games) also helped to reinforce that decision.

But nah, Steam is infinitely better than EGS in every way. Even Origin is considerably more feature-packed than EGS.

 

[NoNAND]

there's an overabundance of salty forth generated from that.
still salty Epic.

 

[NeoSlyde]

If people really cared about their game storefront, they would already have switched to GoG. Steam is barely better than Epic.

This ^
Man i feel like Steam Die Hard Fans are quite retarded...

 

[DarthDub]

I hope that was the rest of Epic's money.

 

[Justinde75]

All that sweet sweet fortnite money

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I hope that was the rest of Epic's money.

Please this is literally just a tiny bit of their money.

 

[DarthDub]

All that sweet sweet fortnite money

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Please this is literally just a tiny bit of their money.

I know, just wishful thinking.

 

[eriol33]

I wonder how many people buy the game on pc. I don't mind buying my games on epic games since I am platform agnostic, Epic games keeps their games locally priced. I actually paid $22.9 for control. This is the first time ever I bought a newly released game on PC. usually I waited about 6-12 months for a discount.

 

[leon315]

I do not feel guilty pirating games that Epic claim for exclusivity. Pirate it... Place it in Steam as a non-steam game. Perfect. They'll get their money when it hits the Steam store.

Unless the game turns out to be trash.

DUDE, what kind of logic is this? there are 3 companies even have you to pay for online? and what about other stores like Origin and Ucan'tPlay? they are even more greedy and pay shit for time exclusives.

 

[DKB]

10 Million dollars for a game that runs like shit on $1200+ GPU. Okay.

 

[DANTENDO]

I wonder how many people buy the game on pc. I don't mind buying my games on epic games since I am platform agnostic, Epic games keeps their games locally priced. I actually paid $22.9 for control. This is the first time ever I bought a newly released game on PC. usually I waited about 6-12 months for a discount.

Someone in this thread who talking sense a fkin bargain enjoy the game I pld least 30 hours on ps4

 

[GilgameshArcher]

Get a ps4 then simple

consoles are shitty, no ps user has ever seen Blighttown on a constant 60 fps