Epic Games Store

Epic Games Store
Basic data
developer	Epic Games
Publishing year	December 6, 2018
Current  version	7.16.0
operating system	Microsoft Windows , macOS
category	Sales platform
License	Proprietary / Freeware
German speaking	Yes
epicgames.com/store

Epic Games Store is an Internet distribution platform for computer games and software that is developed and operated by Epic Games .

Functions

The shop is available in the browser and through the Epic Games launch application. Features of similar Internet sales platforms such as achievements or support for virtual reality headsets are not available. The client is divided into a start page, your own online shop to buy the games, a game library to manage and select them, the administration of friends and your own profile, a download manager and the client settings.

The company plans to support developers who publish their games exclusively through their store by offering sales guarantees to developers who choose to do so. So if a game sells below average, Epic Games pays the difference. The prices vary from region to region.

Epic Games planned to offer a free game every two weeks through the end of 2019 to promote the distribution platform. This promotion was extended in 2020. A game was given away every day between Christmas and New Year 2019.

Later, the platform will also offer the possibility to give player ratings, but this is decided by the developers in order to prevent abuse by mass reviews. OpenCritic reviews have been embedded on the game pages since January 2020.

Like Steam, the Epic Games Store is launching a sale with heavily reduced prices on public holidays.

history

Before the Epic Games Store launched, Valve's distribution platform Steam was the main digital distribution channel for PC games, although there are other competitors such as GOG.com , Origin and Uplay . Valve charges a fee equal to 30% of the retail price for every game sold on Steam. At the time Steam was launched, this was appropriate and comparable to other digital distribution platforms such as the App Store . In August 2017, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney suggested that 30% was no longer a reasonable cut and that Valve would still be profitable if they reduced their revenue share to 8%.

In early December 2018, Epic Games announced that it would open a digital distribution platform to challenge Steam. Epic Games planned to compete with Valve on game developers' profit sharing: 88% for Epic, versus 70% for Valve. Epic would also waive the usual 5% sales fee normally charged on games developed using the Unreal Engine when they are released on the Epic Game Store. According to the calculations by Epic Games, the platform's reduced profit share is enough to be profitable. Epic Games also said it would not impose digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on games sold through its platform . The Epic Games Store opened on December 6, 2018 as part of the Game Awards with a handful of games and a short list of upcoming titles. The platform is initially available for macOS and Windows platforms before expanding to Android and other platforms in the future . Epic intends to publish a distribution platform for Android devices, which will bypass the Google Play Store . A similar strategy should be used to compete with it. Only 12% of sales are required compared to Google's 30%. While Apple's monopoly on iOS currently makes it impossible for Epic Games to have its own app store there, analysts believe that if Google responds to Epic's app store by reducing its stake, Apple will be pressured to do so Example to follow.

Prior to launching the distribution platform , the head of publishing strategy, Sergey Galyonkin, ran Steam Spy , a website that gathered data from public Steam profiles to compile statistics on public sales. He runs the site as a side project, but also used it to learn what the game developers at Epics Games Store would like, namely less social elements and less visual clutter. The sales platform has been curated by hand until it opens for developers in mid-2019. Tim Sweeney said that at this point, the Epic Games Store staff will still be required to approve games for the platform. This process “ mostly focus [es] on the technical side of things and general quality ” (German: “mainly focuses on the technical side of things and general quality”). Epic does not plan to allow adult-only content in the store. The Epic Games Store achieved a large number of users through the computer game Fortnite , which is played by over 200 million players. The platform is also to be advertised by influencers on YouTube and Twitch . Just 50% of Fortnite players also use Steam.

In January 2019, Ubisoft announced its plans to distribute its games through the Epic Games Store, with Tom Clancy's The Division 2 being sold exclusively on the platform (in addition to its own distribution platform, Uplay), making Ubisoft the first major third-party company to offer the Epic Games Store uses. Meanwhile, the Epic Games Store has also secured some time-limited exclusive titles for the PC. Other functions that were introduced in 2019 were, for example, the ability to save games in a cloud , an offline mode to be able to play the games even without the Internet, functions for in-game purchases ( micro transactions ), the preloading of games that have not yet been played and the support of coupon functions.

In January 2020, the Epic Games Store added OpenCritic ratings to the individual game pages. OpenCritic is a rating aggregator of point systems in the trade press and does not include any user ratings. In March 2020 a wish list function was added to the store. In May 2020, Epic Games released the Epic Online Service , which aims to offer developers more options for cross-play and multiplayer modes.

The Epic Games Store had 108 million registered user accounts by the end of 2019 and generated revenue of over $ 670 million. When Grand Theft Auto V was given away in May 2020, a total of 108 games with a purchase value of € 2,000 were given away.

Reactions

The Epic Games Store was announced a few days after Valve announced a change to Steam's profit sharing scheme. Valve's revenue was slated to drop from 30% to 25% after a game grossed more than $ 10 million and to 20% after $ 50 million. Concerns were raised by several indie game developers that this change was meant to keep larger AAA developers and publishers and do little to support smaller developers. When the Epic Games Store was announced, several journalists saw it as potentially dangerous for the current model of Steam. Some developers have already announced plans to exclusively publish games that they wanted to publish on Steam now through the Epic Games Store or to have time exclusivity for the Epic platform before they appear on other services.

criticism

Users often criticize, using the example of Metro Exodus , for the Epic Store buying exclusive rights, even if the game was already available for pre-order on Steam.

In addition, it is criticized that the Epic Store does not have many features that Steam already offers, such as a trading platform, the workshop or various forums. However, it was announced that these and many more would be implemented soon. (As of June 2019)

There are also rumors that Tencent , its largest shareholder with 40% , may pass on user data to the Chinese government.

Web links

Commons : Epic Games Store  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d} Matt Bertz: Tim Sweeney Answers Questions About The New Epic Games Store. In: Game Informer . December 4, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Samuel Horti: Epic's Tim Sweeney reveals how the company lands exclusives for the Epic Store. In: PC Gamer . December 27, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Wishlist & Reviews in the Epic Store: These shop features will be available in 2020. December 20, 2019, accessed on January 17, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Lauren Aitken: Epic Games Store offering 2 free games every month. In: VG247. December 7, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
5. ↑ heise online: Epic Games Store: Free full versions also still in 2020. Accessed on January 17, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Epic Games Store is giving away 12 games for Christmas - winter sale started. December 30, 2019, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Epic Store now with reviews: OpenCritic ratings appear in the shop. January 17, 2020, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Epic Sale extended by one week, all information about offers & 10 euro vouchers. January 2, 2020, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Epic Store starts Halloween sale, but Borderlands 3 confused. October 18, 2019, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Richard-Scott Jones: Steam could be profitable with an 8% cut rather than 30%, says Tim Sweeney. In: PCGamesN. August 23, 2017, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Allegra Frank: Epic Games is launching its own store, and taking a smaller cut than Steam. In: polygon . December 4, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
12. ^ Charlie Hall: The Epic Games Store is live, here's all the titles it will have for sale. In: polygon . December 6, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
13. ↑ ^{a b} Kyle Orland: Epic Games Store launches with extremely limited selection of games. In: Ars Technica . December 7, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
14. ↑ Dan Galliger: An Epic Battle Over Fees app. In: The Wall Street Journal . December 29, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
15. ^ Nathan Grayson, The Guy Behind Steam Spy Has Been Working On Epic's Store For Years. In: Kotaku . December 6, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
16. ↑ 50 percent of Fortnite players don't use Steam, Epic Store is rethinking. January 22, 2019, accessed February 8, 2019 . 
17. ↑ The Epic Games Store: A Future as a Steam Competitor? February 3, 2019, accessed February 8, 2019 . 
18. ↑ Alissa McAloon: The Division 2 is skipping Steam in favor of the Epic Games Store. In: Gamasutra . January 9, 2019, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
19. ↑ challenge to Steam - List of all the exclusive title of Epic Games Store. December 13, 2019, accessed January 17, 2020 . 
20. ↑ Wishlist & Reviews in the Epic Store: These shop features will be available in 2020. December 20, 2019, accessed on January 17, 2020 . 
21. ↑ Chris Kerr: Epic Games Store policy change expands in-game payment options for devs. Retrieved January 17, 2020 (English). 
22. ↑ Epic Games Store: Update adds wishlist. Retrieved May 18, 2020 . 
23. ↑ Crossplay for everyone? Epic is now offering the technology to all developers. May 14, 2020, accessed May 18, 2020 . 
24. ↑ Epic Games Store has generated $ 680M so far, with exclusives being 'critical,' says Tim Sweeney. Retrieved January 17, 2020 (English). 
25. ↑ Epic Games Store: Games worth almost 2,000 euros given away. May 18, 2020, accessed May 18, 2020 . 
26. ↑ Nick Statt: Valve's new Steam revenue agreement gives more money to game developers. In: The Verge . November 30, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
27. ↑ Samuel Horti: Valve's new Steam revenue splits favor big-budget games, and indie devs aren't happy. In: PC Gamer . December 1, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
28. ↑ Kyle Orland: Epic undercuts Steam with new store that gives devs more money. In: Ars Technica . December 4, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
29. ^ Nick Statt, Sean Hollister: Epic Games takes on Steam with its own fairer game store. In: The Verge . December 4, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
30. ↑ Samuel Horti: Some Epic Store games are pushing back or scrapping Steam releases. In: PC Gamer . December 8, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
31. ^ Ali Jones: Steam releases are being delayed - and canceled - in favor of the Epic Games Store. In: PCGamesN. December 10, 2018, accessed January 10, 2019 . 
32. ↑ Metro Exodus: Epic Store most successful sales platform despite protests. May 24, 2019, accessed June 19, 2019 . 
33. ↑ Christopher Lewerenz: Roadmap: Epic Store should catch up with Steam and Co. Retrieved June 19, 2019 . 
34. ^ Fabian Vecellio del Monego: Epic Games: Criticism of exclusive games and allegations of espionage continue. Retrieved June 19, 2019 .