There’s been backlash against the supposedly predatory and anti-consumer business practice of Epic Games Store (EGS), through their Launcher (EGL) as a digital game publisher, and their purchasing of 1 year exclusivity deals with game developers. Gamers dislike this, because they have vested interest in other online digital distribution platforms, like Steam or GOG. Steam has more features, GOG is simpler, the kickstarter project stated they would release on Steam at X date, all my games are on X, etc. Somehow, having exclusive contracts with developers products is hurting business and competition, but we have no evidence to support that.
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Fortnite is a big factor
It’s arguable to say due to the popularity of Fortnite, Epic and its platform are doing well. May 2019 has been very good to Epic because of Fortnite. Think of this as Epic’s Mario, or maybe just Mario Party in the Battle Royale FPS subgenre, but free to play. Much like Super Mario on the NES was a gateway to using the platform to discover Metroid and Zelda, so too is Fortnite to the EGL and its titles. Though Fortnite is not exclusive to the EGL or the PC, it is its popularity and success that has allowed Epic to offer exclusivity deals to developers.
Without Exclusives, competition wouldn’t exist
Why do you go to your favorite store? (CostCo, McDonalds, Nike, Honda, etc.) They have a particular product you want, and can support you and your purchase. Now, the primary reason for a purchase is price, but these are usually adjusted accordingly due to competition of similar products (e.g. Burger King’s Whopper: $4.19 and McDonald’s Big Mac: $3.99, Nike’s running shoes start at $54.99 and Reebok start at $55, 2019 Honda CR-V Touring AWD: $35,195 and 2019 Toyota RAV4 Adventure AWD: $33,995.)
So now that price is no longer a primary factor, you make your choice: You think Whoppers taste better. You like the look of Toyota’s more. Those Nike’s just don’t fit right, so you’ll get a Reebok pair, etc. But you’re still purchasing a particular product at a paritcular store.
If you could buy your products all from one store, life would be much easier for you. But, those retailers wouldn’t exist. The middleman would be cut out of the transaction. If they couldn’t turn a profit, no business could give you the service and other such incentives, deals, or ultimately better experiences. Developers would have to be their own publishers, support call centers, box and game guide manufacturers, etc. Their focus would be removed from making games, and instead the logicstics of selling games (marketing, customer care, storefronts, etc.)
In order for publishers to exist, they must have that thing you can only get from them. This is referred to as an exclusive brand.
You’re buying an Exclusive Brand
While the main factor in any purchase is price, you’re buying something of a certain quality. It could also be what the company represents (X proceeds go to charity, we use X environmentally friendly materials, we’re fun and silly, etc.), but it comes down to the product itself, and less of the middleman. The middleman (the publisher, the storefront, etc.) offers things like customer service, developer support, refunds, and really pretty packaging for your product. They want to tell and show you through marketing and branding, their products and services are quality. 24/7 call support, returns, and coupons. Your happiness is paramount, as is your dollar.
The Steam platform is the largest online publisher. They have a software client that supports a huge number of features no other client does. People don’t associate Steam games with quality, as their everything goes policy has thousands of trash titles. However, gamers become used to using it for those titles they do consider quality. It’s become familiar, almost indicative to PC gaming. How do you break down this monopoly? How do we get better games and publisher services? You offer higher quality games at better prices, from a competitor.
In Epic’s case, they’ve got the quality focus. They won’t do crappy or porn games, though. So, they’re trying to sell themselves on an exclusive, higher-end brand store.
Exclusives are necessary to the gaming industry.
Nintendo, Sony, and XBox wouldn’t exist without exclusivity. There would be no console war, or consoles for that matter. There would be no great franchises, no pushing of hardware envelopes. The Ouya has shown us that amalgamation, opensource, kickstarted hardware, and non-exclusive gaming platforms fail; A lack of exclusive games, and an overall lack of quality in the brand, brought its downfall.
Hardware sales, back in yesteryear retail land, would benefit the company making the platform, not the retailer. Hardware sales of consoles maybe had an ROI of 2-5%. Retailers made most of their money from rentals and sales of rentals or used products, only slightly larger from peripherals. (I worked for a year in video game retailer at a Microplay back in the day.) Want to play their games? You need their hardware, and they (Sony, Nintendo, XBox) made more money than the retailer.
The great thing about digital publishers, or PC digital publisheres, is it’s free. It doesn’t cost the PC gamer a penny. The only thing you’re losing is bandwidth from your ISP if you’re on a download cap, the time to download the client, HD space, and any further updates to the client. The smaller, the better. No calling up or running around to stores, no purchasing $500 pieces of equipment with peripherals, no scratchy CDs, no lost or damaged boxes or manuals, no shopping around or using gas. Big titles are still roughly $60 no matter where you buy them.
But why did you download that digital platform? An exclusive game was on it.
It’s about the quality (of exclusive) games
The only way to compete with a monopoly is not just to provide better products at lower cost, but to make them exclusive. All brand names (CostCo’s Kirkland “everything” brand, McDonald’s, Honda, etc.) are exclusive products sold at exclusive stores. If publishers don’t, gamers won’t have any incentive to go to their stores. There’d be no incentive to download their EGL. Epic wouldn’t make any money. Steam will keep dominating the marketplace, and they have no incentive to improve their service, or their library. Steam eventually does fix things, but it takes increasingly long, as all bloated companies deal with red tape. They also have no incentive to create games, or when they do, they’re horrible (e.g. Artifact.) When last year, they strangely announced they’re suddenly back in the development business. But no Half Life 3? They’ve still got a long way to go.
Epic offers greater ROI to developers (Steam takes 30-35%, Epic takes 12%), lump sums, and better support. All for exclusivity. Julian Gallop of Phoenix Point’s excusivity deal means that “it is certain that we will be able to update and expand Phoenix Point for years to come.” Those who backed the game will get all paid DLC released that year for free. This is win-win-win (developer-publisher-gamer.) He stated you can even use the Steam launcher to load Phoenix Point if you so choose, which is common for many titles.
Without that exclusivity deal from Epic, Phoenix Point would not be a better game. And original backers of the game would not be saving money. They simply need to download a free piece of software to install their game they would’ve insalled through GOG or Steam.
It’s about the developers
If I could give my money to Chris Avellone directly, I would. Unfortunately, there is no Chris Avellone company, kickstarter or patreon yet. And the kickstarted games Avellone have been a part of have been less than what was expected (Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Pillars of Eternity. He even had an impact on Tyranny before he left.)
Epic gives developers lump sums, better ROI, and support. All for one year of exclusivity. Bloated Steam and minimalist GOG offer nothing new. It’s time for those publishers to step up and start competing, and Epic is influencing that. Exclusive games from new publishers are good for the industry; they force everything to get better.
In digital downloads, exclusivity on Epic is only a year.
If a game becomes popular, it might be ported to other platforms. Or if they can make some money, why shouldn’t the developer port it to other platforms? Exclusivity forces the consumer to look at how much they want their product, and how soon. As well, it gives the developer the time to focus on one platform to refine and support the game experience, as opposed to pushing updates and patches on multiple deployments. This might not be possible for smaller developers with independent sized budgets; an influx of cash from Epic could change that. This would also allow further DLC, free or otherwise, to be released.
Video games are largely gauged successfully on their first few days, first week, then month of sales. This is dependent on the marketing and hype built by the industry, and reviewers. Along with trusted reviewers, this allows the game to rise or fall on its own merits, and not some artificially bloated hype balloon. The publisher is successful if their marketing and marketplace serves the customers well, with updates, bug patches, and feedback being communicated in a timely, clear manner.
And if hype doesn’t bother you, and you seriously dislike Epic, you can always wait for a year to evaluate that game you thought you loved, in a more refined and complete state.
It’s about better (exclusive) promotions
Epic must also do a second thing: offer better deals. This is simple marketing to get people in the door. The best way? Give away stuff. They offer a free game every two weeks. This is a promotion that will last for at least all of 2019. So far, as of May 1st, this has topped 25 million free game installs so far.
This is a practice they need to do just to stay relevant. Imagine how much money they’ve lost to battle the giant Steam monopoly, just to get customers eyes back on their screens, in the hopes of buying something else. Other platforms and portals have tried and failed, (Amazon App Store.) They’re still around, but have little to no hope of getting close to Google and Apple (and are smaller than the Windows store.) And they did both exclusivity and free apps.
And yes, Google Play and Apple’s App Store are exclusive publishers, even though Amazon offfers apps for both platforms, and it can’t come close.
I actually don’t care about the middleman
Some people, like me, skip the middle man. Or don’t care. Steam, Origin, Epic, whatever. We don’t have brand loyalty to packaging material. We don’t care about FedEX vs UPS or USPS. This isn’t a restaurant where we need great service; it’s software downloads. If the price is lower, we go with that. We wish those Nintendo and Sony exclusives would be ported to the PC from years gone. After all, exclusivitiy gets in the way of our laziness. (Sure, I’d love Persona 5, Final Fantasy Tactics, and every other console game I’ve loved over the years. But I understand why I can’t.)
We just can’t bring ourselves to care about the wrapping paper. We really only care about the game.
Steam is bloated, giant, and unnecessary to some. We don’t care about the dozens of features or Community hubs or a cart system. (What the devil do we need a cart system for? We’re ordering luxury goods, not groceries.) We just want better games. Epic is at least offering something more to developers, and it’s causing people to take notice.
My harddrive games directory is all the organization I need. My Start menu responds beautifully to my keyboard input in finding the game I wans to play.
Anything that helps the developer sell their games, and make better games, is the kind of industry or publisher relationship we want to see. Combined with their excellent game engine (I’m looking at you, Source & Frostbite), Epic is a great company to get behind. (And we can thank Unity for forcing Unreal and Source to have free and cheaper licensing.)
Exclusive competition is good
In the digital download space, EA, Steam, GOG, or other publishers, should be fighting for exclusivity, offering better ROI and support over new game titles coming out. Better games come about through better develoeprs, and that’s when they have greater returns from their sales, more incentives, and broader support to develop and extend their games after release. A marketing budget is a nice touch, too.
Who knows? Maybe another company will compete with Epic to offer better ROI, lump sums, inhouse support and development; Itch.io and HumbleBumble have been around for their respecitve niches and trading options. These things all benefit the developer, and force publishers to change their services. But it most certainly will need to offer quality exclusive titles, and free games, or it won’t have a chance of competing.
Update: Epic is having it’s first major sale
