Epic Offers New Games Commission-Free Exclusivity

The Epic First Run Program is a new initiative from Epic Games to encourage developers and publishers to release games exclusively on the Epic Games Store. For eligible products that launch after October 16th as six-month exclusives, Epic will forego its normal 12% commission and allow the creators to collect 100% of the proceeds of all sales. New releases without preexisting exclusivity deals with the Epic Games Store are eligible. Games can even still be sold on other stores as long as they use Epic's Access Keys System. Word is: "We are currently integrated with Green Man Gaming, Fanatical, Genba Digital, Humble Bundle and more." So, to summarize:
Epic First Run is an opt-in exclusivity program that offers third-party developers 100% net revenue of user spending on eligible products in their first six months of exclusivity on the Epic Games Store. When the exclusivity period ends, the revenue share captured from user spending will revert to 88%/12%.
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Re: Epic Offers New Games Commission-Free Exclusivity
Aug 24, 2023, 14:13
33.
Re: Epic Offers New Games Commission-Free Exclusivity Aug 24, 2023, 14:13
Aug 24, 2023, 14:13
 
Slick wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 12:09:
The same dynamic where Valve was unhappy having to give a big cut to Vivendi is now EVERYONE having to give a big cut to Valve. The fact that Epic is GIVING AWAY %100 of their cut on EGS and still the sentiment is "screw that" by gamers is pathetic. Zero love for the actual people who spend their lives creating the art we all love, that has enhanced our lives throughout the years. We've collectively given Valve an effective monopoly, and nobody seems to care. So much for the worker's revolution. Everyone's on team multi-billion-dollar zero-development-contributing corporation. And we're all fine with it. It kinda disgusts me.

Err I wasn't referring to the Vivendi lawsuit so that was a lot of text that didn't relate to anything I was discussing. Is Valve hypocritical? Sure, I don't know but I wasn't arguing that. I was referring to the development of Steam itself later on, through its many ups and downs and while the PC gaming industry was in decline. Anyways to address your other point, it's not the job of consumers to directly reward creators, this isn't Patreon. I'm not directly paying someones salary, I don't have that agency in decisions when I decide to purchase a game. It's a product that I buy, that's the beginning and end of that relationship. If you want to see it as more then fair enough but sorry - most people won't share your brand of zealotry. I don't know many people making purchase decisions based on revenue splits that they likely aren't even privy to, kind of a bizarre complaint. It's also really weird to blame consumers for simply using the platform they like the most or to handwave it away as market forces. Almost every big company had a crack at this and people keep coming back to Steam.

From my perspective not a single one of them did it well. Under developed clients, many of them buggy, constantly changing name/branding, not differentiating themselves in any meaningful way to consumers rather than developers and so on.

First, you have to justify why Steam features are worth the same amount as all development towards the game itself. You have to argue that they're equal in value to the gamer. That the game itself is worth the same as the payment portal/launcher. I'll wait while y'all do that.

No one has to justify anything, Steam is clearly worth something (tangible or intangible) to gamers as they keep making that choice. I have no real interest in Valve or Steam, it just fulfills all of my needs for PC gaming and thus I use it the most frequently. I don't think about it too hard, it's just my favorite launcher with the most features and the least amount of friction. I'm not worried about paying Audio engineers salary with a 5% higher revenue split or whatever. I'm just buying games and playing them, often with friends.

I have nothing against EGS, they just haven't really done anything from my consumer perspective to make it worthwhile to use on a consistent basis. I appreciate them existing as a check and balance in the market but that's not enough to make me use it when it represents compromises from the users end.
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