this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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The Epic First Run programme allows developers of any size to claim 100% of revenue if they agree to make their game exclusive on the Epic Games Store for six months.

After the six months are up, the game will revert to the standard Epic Games Store revenue split of 88% for the developer and 12% for Epic Games.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Say what you will about epic, but this is compelling as hell for Devs. Hopefully this puts more pressure on Steam to reduce their cut. Competition is good.

If you're so against epic, have a little patience and wait until it comes to steam 6 months later. That's what I'll be doing. But don't just mindlessly shit in epic because you (as a consumer) don't like their business model intended to attract devs. You can dislike something while also recognising the good in it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My view is that it incentiveses exclusives in the PC space, as opposed to lowering Steam's charge for their services. My biggest concern for gaming is that we end up just like streaming services. A bunch of exclusives and a marketplace that is such a mess you can barely find what service has what you want.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's a fair concern, but I don't think anything has remained exclusive on epic, they all come to Steam eventually. If that changes and epic starts incentivising permanent exclusivity, then I'll be upset. But as it is right now, I have no issues with epic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I know so many people call those situations a "mess", but I'm still in favor of it: Each potential service option keeps the other in check through competition. I only get to use so many streaming services for so cheap because they're lowering their prices in a bid to seem more appealing than the others. When it comes to game stores, their unique features (like say, Xbox's game pass) can make them more compelling.

Granted, 90% of that last argument has just been "Steam has Xfeature, and YStore doesn't...so I prefer Steam"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not so sure, this seems like a less compelling deal than what Epic was offering before, which didn't seem to be working out so well for devs.

Before, they were outright paying for exclusivity, offering studios and publishers huge sums of money to make up for the revenue they lose by not being on Steam, and then some. And they often paid for 12+ months of exclusivity. You were guaranteed profitability regardless of whether or not your game actually succeeded.

In order to break even in the new program, your game needs to retain 70% of the customers that would have bought it day 1 on Steam instead. That seems an impossibly high target to hit, given how much Epic has struggled to make EGS succeed even when they were thowing a lot more money around.