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

e&e

Banned
So company says they are not planning to make profit till 2023 on a project (like most companies the first few years) and people are in here questioning and dissecting if this is affecting the ENTIRE company. Hell don’t we champion Sony for losing money on each console sold for the first few years here?
 

Unknown?

Member
Thats what happens when you fuck with dumb ass exclusivity shit on the PC market. Consoles are one thing but the PC market should be a free one not the way Epic handles the shit. They can fuck off.
How is having ONE company controlling most software distribution free? Seems like you don't have much actual choice.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Of course they're losing money, they give away games every week, they sign exclusivity agreements that may not see a commensurate return, all sorts of things they have to do to put a dent in Steam's domination of the digital distribution channel.

The only question left is how much of the market do they plan on buying before switching over to a profitable model?
 
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harmny

Banned
Sweeney is such a strange fellow. On one hand, lowering store cut is nice for developers, and possibly for gamers (developers having more money can result in more/better games).

On the other, instead of investing all of his manpower into making EGS awesome place to buy games at...

he antagonizes the entire PC gamer community by buying up artificially moneyhatted exclusivities...while offering zero added value with the store/launcher itself, whose development is progressing at utterly pathetic, glacial pace.

He could have been an awesome addition to PC gaming, and even new place to unseat Steam. Instead, he just loses money, people pick up moneyhatted free games, and...go back to Steam, which offers actual value.

It's bizzare to me that it is Galyonkin (Steamspy) of all people that runs EGS in this dumb manner.

Wrong take. Tim is doing the only thing you can do if you really want to fight steam.

Making the egs amazing is not enough. If that was the case the discord store would've been a success.
Why do you think people are buying x game on steam If they can buy the DRM free version on GOG? They can even add every steam game to gog galaxy.
Why did the discord store fail and was shut down after just one year if every pc gamer uses discord?

the truth is that at this point even if steam was worse people would still use it because their entire library is there. Their friends are there. They are used to it. Their achievements are there. Their account level. Inventory. Whatever.
 

Zeroing

Banned
And Epic is about to loose even more money because of the lawsuit with Apple.

When Apple is not busy being “brave” by taking features or tearing down a florest for solar panels ( this is true)

they always go to absurd lengths to win lawsuits!

anyway business as usual!
 

Unknown?

Member
Wrong take. Tim is doing the only thing you can do if you really want to fight steam.

Making the egs amazing is not enough. If that was the case the discord store would've been a success.
Why do you think people are buying x game on steam If they can buy the DRM free version on GOG? They can even add every steam game to gog galaxy.
Why did the discord store fail and was shut down after just one year if every pc gamer uses discord?

the truth is that at this point even if steam was worse people would still use it because their entire library is there. Their friends are there. They are used to it. Their achievements are there. Their account level. Inventory. Whatever.
Which is definitely not a good thing.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Steam is the most feature rich and complete launcher available at the time of writing, get over it lads.

Instead of lamenting it's popularity why are you not asking questions of all these multi-billion dollar corporations who consistently half arse their attempts at entering the PC gaming market? The way these guys behave its like they think they are competing with Steam circa 2008.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
You have to break some eggs first to make an omelette.

THAT’S ONE BIG FUCKING EGGO M8 🤣🤣
 

Stuart360

Member
YellowNegligibleAnnashummingbird-size_restricted.gif
 
I found spending money there to be a pain in the ass with my attempts to give them money failing multiple times. I did spend some money there but I am one of the 56 millions just logging in for 5 mins to accept new games, even if I have them on gog or steam.
 

GHG

Gold Member
I found spending money there to be a pain in the ass with my attempts to give them money failing multiple times. I did spend some money there but I am one of the 56 millions just logging in for 5 mins to accept new games, even if I have them on gog or steam.

No fucking shopping cart. In 2021.

Imagine living that life.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
By doing deals with devs for free games to try and grow an install base. A lot of companies are doing that. 😉

EGS has 56 million monthly active users. Not bad, not bad at all. Wonder how they will turn a profit. If it's a cut from microtransactions then that seems wierd considering their idea about the Apple store. Maybe they plan a subscription too.

Whether it works or not depends on if the customers are actually subscribing to something or just a user on a list. Epic getting users to signup to download stuff for free is getting them signups but not necessarily any sales. LOL

Where something like those free month disks AOL used to send around in the millions were about signing up users to a recurring service, which worked quite well.
 

Brofist

Member
Steam is the most feature rich and complete launcher available at the time of writing, get over it lads.

Instead of lamenting it's popularity why are you not asking questions of all these multi-billion dollar corporations who consistently half arse their attempts at entering the PC gaming market? The way these guys behave its like they think they are competing with Steam circa 2008.
This is what people don't get. It's mostly non PC gamers that are EGS apologists though for some reason.
 

hlm666

Member
Surely this can't help their case against apple. Judge this is the way it should be done you can't let apple run a business that is profitable. Do what we want so we can fix this injustice. Considering both their other attempts in the uk and australia have gone nowhere, looking like epic could lose so badly they'll be lucky to get fortnite back on ios.
 
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Arkam

Member
But they gained some footing to sell stuff their way. I'd say they were happy enough for how it's gone.
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.
 
Probably all the money they've spent developing state of the art shopping cart technology for their store. Based on how long it's taking them to get it implemented I assume their shopping cart will have full ray tracing and DLSS implemented at launch using Unreal Engine 5. No worries though, I'm sure a certain Chinese corporation that "only owns 40%" of them will be able to cover it.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
That's what happens when you give away too much value (e.g., 88% cut to developers, royalty-free engine use, free weekly games to gamers). I wish Epic the best though. We need more competition in the industry, and Epic has been good to developers.
 

Graciaus

Member
How is having ONE company controlling most software distribution free? Seems like you don't have much actual choice.
Except you do. The keys might activate through Steam but there are many choices of where to buy that key. Steam is rarely the cheapest and I almost never buy directly through them. They also make no money off sales that way. You also could just use an alternate store if you really hated Steam.

That's what happens when you give away too much value (e.g., 88% cut to developers, royalty-free engine use, free weekly games to gamers). I wish Epic the best though. We need more competition in the industry, and Epic has been good to developers.
This is what happens when you run a terrible service. All Epic did was annoy pc gamers and increase piracy.
 
I guess the problem Epic have is that you aren’t locked in like on a console. I have tons of stuff on EGS with all the free games and the big sales they do but will happily drop it for another store or at least stop buying stuff if they stop with the heavy discounting.

They might keep the OCD people that can’t bear to have more than one storefront installed but most people will just buy where it’s cheap I imagine.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
After all that preaching about giving more money to devs and how steam and apple are the devil because of 30%, perhaps it's not so easy to be profitable like that.
Well old habits are hard to change.

Also, doesn't help their store is a mess compared to others.
 
How is having ONE company controlling most software distribution free? Seems like you don't have much actual choice.

Steam allows developers to sell their games wherever they want. Steam does not force developers to launch their game just on their platform. Steam has actual features than literally all the other stores. Stop being a dumbass.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Are people really surprised? You’re not going to build a digital storefront and be profitable day 1. Also this is probably one week or so of Fortnite money.
 

TonyK

Member
If they fall maybe I will return to PC. If PC becomes stable again with Steam I will really consider to return. Meanwhile that warzone settles I'm fine with PS5.
 

Denton

Member
Wrong take. Tim is doing the only thing you can do if you really want to fight steam.

Making the egs amazing is not enough. If that was the case the discord store would've been a success.
Why do you think people are buying x game on steam If they can buy the DRM free version on GOG? They can even add every steam game to gog galaxy.
Why did the discord store fail and was shut down after just one year if every pc gamer uses discord?

the truth is that at this point even if steam was worse people would still use it because their entire library is there. Their friends are there. They are used to it. Their achievements are there. Their account level. Inventory. Whatever.
No.

First, making EGS itself great and added value is a must if Sweeney wants actual customers who buy games instead of just picking up freebies. It is an absolute pre-requisite and Epic is failing miserably at this.

Second, moneyhatted exclusivities are not "the only thing to do to fight steam". Carrot works much better than the stick.

If EGS was

- functionally better than steam, perhaps also offering Epic's version of GOG connect
- offered better prices on most games due to Epic's voucher
- offered free games
- offered exclusive games fully funded by Epic (and thus not moneyhatted away third parties)
- was much better marketed

It would convince people much easier to leave steam, than it currently does, with its total lack of functionality and moneyhatted exclusives.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
You don’t start a business to immediate profit. 2 to 3 years for a business to be profitable is standard. That’s 101 business.
 

Kerotan

Member
Surely this is expected. You can't muscle your way into this market without spending big bucks. The true test will be in a few years. Will the store stand the test of time without the big money hats?
 

RespawnX

Member
This is really bad, how can you have such a poor performing year in 2020 when everything was up by a huge percent thanks to COVID. Insane losses, no way it makes a profit by 2023.
Ya, everyone said the same about Amazon and Netflix and Tesla and so on. They are investing a lot of money to compete against Steam and get a strong position. Just give them some time. They aren’t interested in pretty short term numbers, they are trying to build the business to last.
 
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Skifi28

Member
It still boggles my mind that one of their core pillars for attracting people to the store was advertising they give developers a bigger cut. You could try, I dunno, giving consumers a better price instead? The actual people you want shopping? I couldn't care less how much corporations/publishers make, much like they don't care how much I make.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Well, Epic isn't trying to compete by offering a better service. They're just throwing tons of money at exclusives. The store itself is a pale imitation of Steam.

But hey, free games for another 2 years and you don't even have to put on an eyepatch.
 

Sentenza

Member
One (well, ANOTHER) aspect about the EGS that annoys the hell out of me is that its entire business strategy is basically built over straight-up, textbook anti-competitive practices.

We can sort of laugh about how unsuccessful they've been so far only because Steam is hanging around as the "bigger fish in the pond" (at least in terms of digital market share), but without Valve, what we'd be witnessing is a billionaire company trying to bully any other small competitor out of the market with predatory pricing, exclusivity deals and other unsustainable practices.

Oh, and let's not forget that they are assumed to be roughly twice as big as Valve but try to sell themselves as the plucky underdog in all this bullshit.
 
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adamosmaki

Member
Thats what happens when you fuck with dumb ass exclusivity shit on the PC market. Consoles are one thing but the PC market should be a free one not the way Epic handles the shit. They can fuck off.
but but free games. I got subnautica on Epic for free to try it and i ended buying the game on Steam for $10 because of Epics lack of Mod support.
 
They are funding some EGS exclusives while buying exclusivity from 3rd party developers.

Any profit would come after their own games release.
 
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