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- May 29, 2018
I mean, Epic wanted a true competition, so good for them
Epic Games General Thread - Its time to talk about what the AAA gaming industry does not understand about the PC console.
- Thread starter mindlessobserver
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kiwifarms.net
I looked through that tweet chain. According to some comments, that may have been in effect since 2018 and Valve hasn't enforced that rule.
If this is true, that means either Valve hasn't made any attempt to do anything about Tim, or they may be waiting to strike.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2019
Tommy Refenes calls Epic Games Store exclusivity deal 'a total no-brainer'
When Super Meat Boy Forever eventually launches, the PC version will only be available on the Epic Games Store. That's a growing trend in the PC market, as Epic has made a concentrated effort to ink big-time names to exclusivity agreem...
www.destructoid.com
I really wish Epic would actually put some of this money into fixing up the store.Tommy Refenes calls Epic Games Store exclusivity deal 'a total no-brainer'
2019-09-06 16:08:00by Brett Makedonski
226
'I don't know who wouldn't take that deal'
When Super Meat Boy Forever eventually launches, the PC version will only be available on the Epic Games Store. That's a growing trend in the PC market, as Epic has made a concentrated effort to ink big-time names to exclusivity agreements. Super Meat Boy Forever was one of the first, with its year-long exclusivity announced shortly after the store itself was unveiled.
Super Meat Boy co-creator Tommy Refenes says Epic's offer was so attractive that he had no problem ditching Steam. In an interview with Destructoid at PAX West, Refenes reminisced on that initial pitch meeting.
"They told me they want Super Meat Boy Forever on the Epic Games Store but it would be a year exclusive. At first, I was kind of like 'Oh...okay," Refenes explained. "Then they said they would guarantee our sales. Even then, I'm kind of like 'I don't even know what to ask for. So, run the numbers and tell me what you would offer.' They did, and I was like 'Yes!' It was a total no-brainer. After I got the numbers, the level of fear of not launching on Steam for PC was immediately alleviated."
That's Epic's appeal. It's mitigating a lot of risk out of video game creation by guaranteeing that developers will break even at a bare minimum. It's a more sustainable model for developers. Refenes says "That's huge. That's huge for anyone in any industry to be like 'When you get done with your work, you're definitely going to make this much.' I don't know who wouldn't take that deal."
Refenes adds that Epic's level of support "is beyond anything [we've gotten before]." The promotion that Super Meat Boy Forever has received is something that generally doesn't happen without a major publisher's backing. "We announced at The Game Awards, and these are things that I'm not going to get anywhere else. To actually have Meat Boy on the screen at The Game Awards is nuts."
That being said, Refenes expected the pushback on the consumer side. "Gaming is a super important thing to a lot of people. It's a part of their lives," he explains. "When something comes up and challenges that, it's completely reasonable for the reaction to kind of assume the worst is going to happen. I can see the passion of having something that's near and dear to you change, and being averse to that change."
He continues "I was completely expecting that, and I was completely expecting people to bring up Tencent stuff. What's unfortunate is that the concerns some people have are reasonable. You have people who are like 'It's not that great of a store' or whatever. But then you have the wild bullshit of Chinese spyware conspiracy theory crap. It's like 'Okay, you people shut up' because the people who have actual concerns are being drowned out, and I think it's a shame. They all get lumped together."
At the end of the day, Refenes seems perfectly happy with his Epic deal and the safety net it affords -- even if he ends up losing some sales from people who refuse to buy on the Epic Games Store. It might not even make much of a difference. "I feel like people are going to buy games on PC because that's what we've done. Steam is a way to buy games, but it's not the only place that sells them and it's not the only place that's successful."
We'll have more from our interview with Team Meat's Tommy Refenes next week.
They sure are taking their time putting this out though. This was supposed to be out in April.
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2019
So long story short "Epic said I'll get two suitcases full of money and a bonus for a whole year. So like a complete tool I took said cash. Oh an watch me sperg how great Epic is for that"
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2019
Basically. If this wasn't an old deal from 2018 and he wasn't blunt about the Epic deal just being really good, I'd probably be annoyed with it. I can't blame a little guy for jumping onto a guaranteed pile of money. I can blame Epic for refusing to bring their shitty store up to standards. I'm also not that interested in it since it looks like an autorunner type of game.
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2019
I'm honestly more tired of the same tune off "Oh Epic gives us poor devs so much money! Unlike that greedy steam!" its the same shit I hear from Epic white knights and some publishers/indie devs. Like a thing NOBODY cared about until Tim Sweeny opened his cockhole, then suddenly everyone cares about the poor devs.
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2014
>It's a more sustainable model for developers.
I'm sure it's sustainable for Epic as well. They'll definitely make back that huge amount of money they've spent on exclusives from the great sales they have on their beloved platform.
I'm sure it's sustainable for Epic as well. They'll definitely make back that huge amount of money they've spent on exclusives from the great sales they have on their beloved platform.
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2019
Yeah, such a great model that Metro Exodus ran off towards Microsofts store, despite the contract for the 1 year exclusivity havent yet expired.
KanaPostsonKiwi
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2018
Steam cut vs. their feature list is more than reasonable, the low cut of Steam can be directly attributed to the massive boom of indie games, and i never understood the argument for that epic "12%" cut (which is not 12% if you read the fine print anyway).
Let's roll back to a time before Steam was available in a region with a lot of games, let's say east asia for sake of the argument. Getting your game out on PC with a publisher so it'd have far less visibility than a decent game released on Steam would likely get you less than 15% for sale, and this is on PC without the console cut or entry fee that would get you significantly more leverage as a publisher. These kinds of things were also why so many studios were trying to get under the wing of big publishers such as EA, Activision, Ubi, because not only would they have financial stability, their payout for a succesful game would be significantly higher than pitching a game to a publisher.
The only real reason as a developer you would be worried of your game not making enough to pay for the effort and time you put in are as follows:
- It's an extremely niche title and labor of love (generally games like these are free. See Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead and more or less anything else that SsethTzeentach covers for the ur-example of this kind of title)
- You didn't bother to ask more experienced developers about how you should timetable your project, and you've ran out of time and are pushing out a highly unfinished piece
- It's shit and you have no idea what you're doing. If you're in this category, you're the kind of person who complained about Steam refunds being a thing.
Let's roll back to a time before Steam was available in a region with a lot of games, let's say east asia for sake of the argument. Getting your game out on PC with a publisher so it'd have far less visibility than a decent game released on Steam would likely get you less than 15% for sale, and this is on PC without the console cut or entry fee that would get you significantly more leverage as a publisher. These kinds of things were also why so many studios were trying to get under the wing of big publishers such as EA, Activision, Ubi, because not only would they have financial stability, their payout for a succesful game would be significantly higher than pitching a game to a publisher.
The only real reason as a developer you would be worried of your game not making enough to pay for the effort and time you put in are as follows:
- It's an extremely niche title and labor of love (generally games like these are free. See Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead and more or less anything else that SsethTzeentach covers for the ur-example of this kind of title)
- You didn't bother to ask more experienced developers about how you should timetable your project, and you've ran out of time and are pushing out a highly unfinished piece
- It's shit and you have no idea what you're doing. If you're in this category, you're the kind of person who complained about Steam refunds being a thing.
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2018
Why do people keep talking about how good a deal it is? Of course it's a no brainer, only an idiot doesn't take free money. Journalists really don't have anything worth talking about.Tommy Refenes calls Epic Games Store exclusivity deal 'a total no-brainer'
When Super Meat Boy Forever eventually launches, the PC version will only be available on the Epic Games Store. That's a growing trend in the PC market, as Epic has made a concentrated effort to ink big-time names to exclusivity agreem...
I really wish Epic would actually put some of this money into fixing up the store.
They sure are taking their time putting this out though. This was supposed to be out in April.
View attachment 929648
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2015
just for those wonderingTommy Refenes calls Epic Games Store exclusivity deal 'a total no-brainer'
When Super Meat Boy Forever eventually launches, the PC version will only be available on the Epic Games Store. That's a growing trend in the PC market, as Epic has made a concentrated effort to ink big-time names to exclusivity agreem...
I really wish Epic would actually put some of this money into fixing up the store.
They sure are taking their time putting this out though. This was supposed to be out in April.
View attachment 929648
edmund has nothing to do with the game, aside from his characters being in it, and an old prototype
he's busy with isaac and (hopefully) mewgenics
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2019
Ok, so it is just a re-purposed phone game. Good to know since I was getting that vibe, that's another reason for me to ignore it.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
I could've sworn I saw this exact article months ago, what the fuck is going on?Tommy Refenes calls Epic Games Store exclusivity deal 'a total no-brainer'
When Super Meat Boy Forever eventually launches, the PC version will only be available on the Epic Games Store. That's a growing trend in the PC market, as Epic has made a concentrated effort to ink big-time names to exclusivity agreem...
I really wish Epic would actually put some of this money into fixing up the store.
They sure are taking their time putting this out though. This was supposed to be out in April.
View attachment 929648
Wow, that's so fucking surreal. The best teams of indies always drift apart.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
Tommy Refenes calls Epic Games Store exclusivity deal 'a total no-brainer'
When Super Meat Boy Forever eventually launches, the PC version will only be available on the Epic Games Store. That's a growing trend in the PC market, as Epic has made a concentrated effort to ink big-time names to exclusivity agreem...
I really wish Epic would actually put some of this money into fixing up the store.
They sure are taking their time putting this out though. This was supposed to be out in April.
View attachment 929648
Oh fuck you Tommy Refenes and Ed McMillen! I bought Super Meat Boy day 1 on Steam and played the shit out of it. Beat most of the Pink World (that's what she said yada yada) and you know, Forever didn't look amazing but I was still looking forward to trying it. You're not getting my money now you faggots. I hope Tim Sweeny's dick was worth sucking because you're dead to me.
Edit:
So Tommy is to blame? I'm glad Ed didn't sell his soul but this still sucks. I'm pirating the shit out of Forever.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2015
since ed only did a prototype many years ago and hasn't touched it since i'm sure the game wont be good anyway
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
I was bummed that it was an endless runner. But since it was mobile only -at the time- I thought that was excusable and might still be fun. Then they announce it's coming to console and PC and it's still an endless runner for some reason? Da fuck? I like the idea of Meat Boy being able to attack and acting as a dash/slide. That's cool. But there's no need to keep it as an endless runner.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
everybody wants to be on steam for the exposure alone. only reason to do your own thing is if you think you'll make more money on your own and have full control over the store and backend.
ubisoft not leaving steam and slowly channeling players towards uplay and then keeping them with better deals was actually smart. uplay keys are usually cheaper, and even the "every key is bought with a hacked credit card!!!1" retards can just use the voucher you get for simply playing their games. compare that to origin's "it's us or them" and then trying to entice players to use your platform by giving away tons of free games so people have a library (which is one of the reason people stick with steam, but good luck competing with that) - the exact same thing epic is trying to do right now. it also has less impact with their business model piggybacking off other stores.
ubisofts PR was always embarrassing, remember "90% of pc users are pirates", then only supporting the platform with the bare minimum (least not as short-sighted as epic and crytek completely running off to consoles, but still)? years later they had to eat that when numbers proved them wrong. same bullshit.
as for uplay itself, technically it's the least cancerous launcher, visually as well. only stupid thing is it's constant screaming for admin rights if you run it non-privileged (to the point it can fuck up a game launch, but I suspect that's more on denuvo) and it's friendslist, but no one uses that seriously anyway. origin fucks itself on it's own and is so fucking slow it feels like it's done in electron for a "feature-rich" web 2.0 site (ffs I just want to see my library), but still doesn't have anything on EGS which not only breaks when trying to display anything just like origin, it also can't load it's own checkout properly. imagine releasing a html-wrapper, probably written in unreal engine, to data-mine steam users but then fuck up so hard people can't even use it.
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- Joined
- Apr 20, 2019
this super meat boy article is just more of epic trying to attract devs with seemingly popular series and hoping that users will come despite the lack of features compared with steam or even fucking gog. they've had a pathway thing saying when they aim to add features to the store but it ain't coming along at all.
the article is just him sucking epic's chode and saying how all the devs should come get some iizzums too
the article is just him sucking epic's chode and saying how all the devs should come get some iizzums too
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2014
I dont get Tommie strategy, i mean ok, you get tons of exclusives but in the process you are branding a tons of devs as shills, make your brand look bad and i dont think Epic move the same quantities of copies that Steam could, what im asking is, what is the purpose is there is no return? how Epic is going to get their money back? there is a limit how much Fortnite money you can burn on this
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
as timmy said in the beginning he doesn't care about the cattle, they will come when he's the only one selling the games people want - "developers will decide who wins the game store wars" and "origin for ea games, steam for valve games, epic for everything else".
that's the bet, when epic become the next steam they basically get free money just like valve does now, same way uber/netflix/etc will when they're the top dog in the future. it's not about being "better" or what people actually want, it's being the only choice.