Tim Sweeney on EGS' Impact [Jun 26, 2019, 11:18 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
A lengthy
series
of tweets from Tim Sweeney looks to address some of the concerns gamers have
expressed over Epic Games Store exclusives and other issues:
This question gets to the core of Epic’s strategy for competing with dominant storefronts. We believe exclusives are the only strategy that will change the 70/30 status quo at a large enough scale to permanently affect the whole game industry.
For example, after years of great work by independent stores (excluding big publishers like EA-Activision-Ubi), none seem to have reached 5% of Steam’s scale. Nearly all have more features than Epic; and the ability to discount games is limited by various external pressures.
This leads to the strategy of exclusives which, though unpopular with dedicated Steam gamers, do work, as established by the major publisher storefronts and by the key Epic Games store releases compared to their former Steam revenue projections and their actual console sales.
In judging whether a disruptive move like this is reasonable in gaming, I suggest considering two questions: Is the solution proportionate to the problem it addresses, and are gamers likely benefit from the end goal if it’s ultimately achieved?
The 30% store tax usually exceeds the entire profits of the developer who built the game that’s sold. This is a disastrous situation for developers and publishers alike, so I believe the strategy of exclusives is proportionate to the problem.
If the Epic strategy either succeeds in building a second major storefront for PC games with an 88/12 revenue split, or even just leads other stores to significantly improve their terms, the result will be a major wave of reinvestment in game development and a lowering of costs.
Will the resulting 18% increase in developer and publisher revenue benefit gamers? Such gains are generally split among (1) reinvestment, (2) profit, and (3) price reduction. The more games are competing with each other, the more likely the proceeds are to go to (1) and (3).
So I believe this approach passes the test of ultimately benefitting gamers after game storefronts have rebalanced and developers have reinvested more of their fruits of their labor into creation rather than taxation.
Of course, there are LOTS of challenges along the way, and Epic is fully committed to solving all problems that arise for gamers are for our partners as the Epic Games store grows.
Beamer wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 22:45:Kxmode wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 22:29:Beamer wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 21:43:Kxmode wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 21:09:Beamer wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 18:19:...
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What part of Fortnite is greedy? I've only played it a bit, but it never asked me for money, unless I wanted a dance or something, but why would I want a dance or something?
Regardless, do you think he's making the decisions on Fortnite?
Oh please. Stop automatically implying I meant greed. The meaning behind the question is simple. Before Fortnite, Epic made X-amount annually. After, they made significantly more. The EGS empire is birthed off the Fortnite profits. To imply that Tim isn't driven by money is foolish. He's a CEO. He has ONE job. Drive growth and profit for his company.
I think it is cool that Tim is huge into conservation. "Sweeney has bought large tracts of land in different parks, largely in North Carolina; such as Mount Mitchell State Park, and Box Creek Wilderness and other large tracts of land to connect national parks and stop development into commercial areas. He has also donated millions on conservation projects in North Carolina and has made statements about his intent to turn a majority of the land into permanent nature conservation. He has also detailed his future plan is to protect a large amount of rare plant and wildlife species in the area, and to connect South Mountains State Park to Chimney Rock, by purchasing land and donating conservation easements to the US Fish and Wildlife Service." Source
That's noble. I wish he was more noble with EGS.
You realize that Epic is privately held, right? Privately held CEOs do not have the same fiduciary duty.
That has to be the dumbest thing I've heard someone post online. The rest of your points are rendered invalid but that statement.
"Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times." - Those Who Remain by G. Michael Hopf
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