• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Epic Games lost almost $181 million & $273 million on EGS in 2019 and 2020, respectively

GHG

Gold Member
As much as I dislike the EGS, I agree with this statement. Losing ONLY a few hundred million to become the number 2 (are they? I assume so, but have no basis) ecosystem on the biggest platform is chump change. MS dropped a billion plus to break into the console market.

The console market is a different ball game, each platform holder creates their own closed ecosystem.

The PC market is completely open and the only thing stopping someone breaking in is distribution rights with publishers and having the ability to develop a competent and competitive launcher.

The latter is where everyone is failing and in the case of Epic instead prioritising the development of their launcher and storefront they are attempting to circumvent that step by money-hatting exclusive games.

This is why it comes as no surprise to me that it's predominantly console gamers who are championing Epic's strategy, that methodology is what they are familiar with. The reality is that on PC it is wholly unnecessary and rarely works in the long term.
 

Sevenfold

Member
EGS is awful. Barely better than when it launched. I feel like I'm fighting it constantly and waiting for it always. Any store that forces me to google a product because of the lack of information on it has fallen at the first imho.
 

John Wick

Member
What's a successful example of buying your way into a space resulting in faster success than starting small but profitable and scaling up? I'm sure there are plenty, but I can't think of one at the moment.
They were never going to dislodge the monopoly of Steam without going big. It's gonna cost but it will get them customers. Offering free and exclusive games will net you customers.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
And can they safely switch to a profitable model in the first place? Without losing too much of their market share that is

They only need enough accounts for it to be worth it for a publisher to have their product on EGS. It doesn't have to be exclusive. As long as EGS charges significantly less than Steam it'll make sense for a publisher to have an EGS version. This has been more or less simply proving to those publishers that it works and that they get more profit per licensed copy on EGS than on Steam.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
They only need enough accounts for it to be worth it for a publisher to have their product on EGS. It doesn't have to be exclusive. As long as EGS charges significantly less than Steam it'll make sense for a publisher to have an EGS version. This has been more or less simply proving to those publishers that it works and that they get more profit per licensed copy on EGS than on Steam.
But will people actually use the store after all the free games and cupons stop being a thing? Thats what i meant.
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Not surprising. Basic 5 year plan so far. It's near the end of 2023-2024 when this gets interesting if they are still hemorrhaging money.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
But will people actually use the store after all the free games and cupons stop being a thing? Thats what i meant.

Why wouldn't they? To some people it's just another launcher. While Steam offers a lot more in terms of features I suspect many/most people don't use any of those features. It's just bloat to them.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Why wouldn't they? To some people it's just another launcher. While Steam offers a lot more in terms of features I suspect many/most people don't use any of those features. It's just bloat to them.
That goes both ways though. Because its just another launcher they can just casually switch out of EGS for any silly reason. It isn't like GOG or MS store that offer unique values (Offline installers and Gamepass) that can keep costumers.
People might flock to it now because of these loss-leaders tactics, but why would they keep shopping there after they're done with them?
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom