ItBurn wrote on Jan 28, 2019, 20:04:
I'm not sure I understand why Metro decided to go with Epic store only though. Clearly they'll lose a lot of sales. Perhaps they struck a deal with Epic. I thank them for their sacrifice!
Along with the generous 12% cut, Epic Games gave Deep Silver lots of money to have an exclusive title on their Store.
Concerning their business decision, Deep Silver is thinking short term. Sure they'll make 18% more per unit sold. However, over the long run, they will lose more from the loss of tail-end revenue as long as the title remains exclusive to Epic's store. By that, I mean after the hype dies down the store's perks kick in to help drive sales. The number one driver is user base. Steam has something like 120+ MILLION registered accounts (yes, I understand there's a lot of thrash). However, according to
Steam's stats, peak concurrent users in the past 48 hours was 17.5 MILLION. That's more than all consoles combined.
Further, the loss of high visibility from Discovery and Recommendations. The loss of high profile publisher store sales (the noticeable absence of Metro Exodus from their publisher sales event page). Finally, many will toss the game in their Wishlist and wait for a sale. That's not going to happen, and Deep Silver will be out all that potential income they could have made from Steam Wishlist sales (the lower the price, the more a publisher makes). To compare, during an annual meeting with investors, CD Projekt Red stated sales of The Witcher 3 have steadied and in recent years gone up. They claim to have made more money in the past years than the game's first launch year. They give thanks in part to Steam and GOG.
All the above is the 18% loss Deep Silver takes over the long term now that they're exclusive on a storefront with no real loyal shopper base. Now if Epic's exclusive deal subsidizes Deep Silvers potential losses, then it makes sense. Deep Silver believes with Epic they will make their target back faster thereby rendering Steam's long-term perks irrelevant.
At this point, Epic is just burning through their Fortnite cash to create a PC console like Xbox and Playstation quickly. The problem here is PC isn't a console. It's a platform. The only thing exclusive to PC is the operating system. Forcing exclusivity on PC gamers will engender anger. Also when the popularity of Fortnite fades - and it will - so will Epic's buying power to have exclusives. Valve will still be in a better position. Hopefully, Valve gets a clue and lowers their fees.
This comment was edited on Jan 29, 2019, 01:21.Edit: Disregard everything I wrote.
Will Metro Exodus ever return to Steam?
Yes - Metro Exodus will return to Steam and on other store fronts after 14th February 2020.
That explains the plan. They want to go exclusive Epic to make more per sale. Then move to Steam for residual income. I guess that's an Okay move. When they come to Steam they better not charge full price. I still believe the move is going to hurt them.
"Listen, Peter... with great horsepower comes... the sickest drifts..." - source