Many of Epic's exclusivity deals were 'not good investments,' says Tim Sweeney

[John Elden Ring]

However, responding to a question about Epic's free game strategy on a call with press earlier this week, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said that it's been a "very economical" user acquisition program, with the bonus that the budget goes to game developers—a group it's in a game store's interest to see thrive—rather than toward Facebook or Google ads.

"Giving away free games seems counterintuitive as a strategy, but companies spend money to acquire users into games," said Sweeney. "For about a quarter of the price that it costs to acquire users through Facebook ads or Google Search Ads, we can pay a game developer a lot of money for the right to distribute their game to our users, and we can bring in new users to the Epic Games Store at a very economical rate.

"And you might think that this would hurt the sales prospects of games on the Epic Game Store, but developers who give away free games actually see an upsurge in the sale of their paid games on the store, just because their free game raises awareness. And it's so much that often developers, when they're about to launch a new game, come with us wanting to work closely on a timed release of a free game, just to drive user awareness of their next game. That's been an awesome thing. And it's been by far the most cost effective aspect of the Epic Games Store."

Epic's other big method for attracting new Epic Games Store users has been to strike exclusivity deals with publishers like Ubisoft. It's been an unpopular strategy, and hasn't gone as swimmingly.

"We spent a lot of money on exclusives," said Sweeney. "A few of them worked extremely well. A lot of them were not good investments, but the free games program has been just magical."

Source

 

[ethomaz]

Everybody knew that

 

[Etifilio]

yep, you can't compete with Steam, that's why i laugh everytime i see people here saying Sony should compete with Valve with their own launcher... the only way Sony can have a decent presence on PC gaming is by purchasing Valve altogether, no launcher or exclusive release to it will fix that. and unfortunately, Sony is fortifying Valve's monopolistic storefront with tentpole releases every year. Steam will become the biggest gaming storefront on the planet and will surpass PS Store in a matter of time, specially with them expanding SteamOS beyond Steam Deck now...

 

[JAHGamer]

yep, you can't compete with Steam, that's why i laugh everytime i see people here saying Sony should compete with Valve with their own launcher... the only way Sony can have a decent presence on PC gaming is by purchasing Valve altogether, no launcher or exclusive release to it will fix that. and unfortunately, Sony is fortifying Valve's monopolistic storefront with tentpole releases every year. Steam will become the biggest gaming storefront on the planet and will surpass PS Store in a matter of time, specially with them expanding SteamOS beyond Steam Deck now...

You're right, but weren't you one of the people saying Sony should have their own launcher?

 

[ethomaz]

yep, you can't compete with Steam, that's why i laugh everytime i see people here saying Sony should compete with Valve with their own launcher... the only way Sony can have a decent presence on PC gaming is by purchasing Valve altogether, no launcher or exclusive release to it will fix that. and unfortunately, Sony is fortifying Valve's monopolistic storefront with tentpole releases every year. Steam will become the biggest gaming storefront on the planet and will surpass PS Store in a matter of time, specially with them expanding SteamOS beyond Steam Deck now...

Different situations.

Sony has games and they don’t need to make any type of exclusive deals… so a launcher makes sense to sell PlayStation games… it will sell for these that want without have the issues of Steam users that doesn’t buy games.

Epic outside Fortnite (that is F2P) has nothing to put in their store to maintain it… they have to try exclusives deals with 3rd-parties that are expensive.

There is no way to Epic way works… if Sony was relying in 3rd-party exclusives deals to release games on PC the launcher should never work.

 

[Neversummer]

The only way the epic store will compete with Steam is if Epic makes new games at a first party level that are permanently exclusive.

Surprised Epic hasn’t made a DOTA or even CSGO type game using Fortnite characters. With all cosmetic that you have in Fortnite carrying over. Instead Epic has funnel everything under Fortnite which is good for Fortnite but bad for the Epic game store in the long run. They should make a singleplayer game like Lego Horizon but with Fortnite that would be big & easy since Fortnite characters allready have Lego forms.

 

[Neversummer]

yep, you can't compete with Steam, that's why i laugh everytime i see people here saying Sony should compete with Valve with their own launcher... the only way Sony can have a decent presence on PC gaming is by purchasing Valve altogether, no launcher or exclusive release to it will fix that. and unfortunately, Sony is fortifying Valve's monopolistic storefront with tentpole releases every year. Steam will become the biggest gaming storefront on the planet and will surpass PS Store in a matter of time, specially with them expanding SteamOS beyond Steam Deck now...

Sony doesn’t have to 1 to 1 compete with Steam but PS w PS PC launcher can have there own space like Riot where they exist & they have a decent presence with there own PC launcher & having full control of there games on PC aswell as earning 100% of the revenue instead of sharing splits

 

[JAHGamer]

At least they have Wuthering Waves, Genshin, Honkai, and ZZZ as exclusives. Those deals are definitely worth it, but the Square Enix deals aren't, since games like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts don't even have a large audience on PC anyways.

 

[BillyZ]

Sony doesn’t have to 1 to 1 compete with Steam but PS w PS PC launcher can have there own space like Riot where they exist & they have a decent presence with there own PC launcher & having full control of there games on PC aswell as earning 100% of the revenue instead of sharing splits

Sure if Sony games started to be all F2P exactly like Riot

 

[CrackmanNL]

Sure if Sony games started to be all F2P exactly like Riot

You need to have titles that appeal to PC audience, just like Steam rode of Half 2 (and CS Source) and before that Battlenet with Diablo.
Thing is people have invested their digital libraries into Steam over a decade and are reluctant to split it across others. That's why younger and emerging gamers dgaf since they play Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox, League etc. where ever it is they just see it as an app instead of launcher.

I always say for a platform to continue to exist you need fresh blood, otherwise you simply age out and cease to exist. We've seen it in other industries like mobile were Nokia and Blackberry at a certain point were too big to fail, but still failed.

Epic has Fortnite as a gateway but those gamers are not interested to play AW2 or KH3 that's what Sweeney is talking about.

 

[AllBizness]

Devs are poor business men most of the time and Tim Sweeney is no different.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Because of their free games I have over 200 games on Epic! I think I may have bought 2 games...

 

[Old Gamer]

Because of their free games I have over 200 games on Epic! I think I may have bought 2 games...

Don't worry, you paid for the rest with your personal data.

 

[reziel]

No wonder he's been trying to find loop holes in other platforms services to push sales. As well trying to sue everyone he can. This explains alot the guy needs to be replaced.

 

[voke]

No wonder he's been trying to find loop holes in other platforms services to push sales. As well trying to sue everyone he can. This explains alot the guy needs to be replaced.

Tried waaaaay to hard to be one of the relevant platform holders. Sorry but Epic will never be that, and should find growth elsewhere. They should appreciate their position with unreal engine more, but these companies always want more.

 

[Shadow2027]

Many on PC dont wanna buy the games let alone they aint switching launchers

 

[Neversummer]

Sure if Sony games started to be all F2P exactly like Riot

Horizon online should be a F2P monster Hunter aswell as TLOU online being rebooted into a survival game instead of a battle royal. Make TLOU online a survival game with the TLOU1 faction mode on the side all F2P. Your telling me half ass, mediocre graphical games such a Rust & Day Z have a decent playerbase but a survival TLOU wouldn’t absolutely slaughter them both & really because TLOU online would now be a survival it can be sold for $40 but if Sony wanted to break in the F2P space making it F2P would be interesting & essentially offer unmatched gameplay/graphic all for free will competitors are being sold at $20-$50

 

[Neversummer]

Many on PC dont wanna buy the games let alone they aint switching launchers

PC players will only switch or at the very least download a PS PC launcher if these multiplayer games by PS where exclusive to the PC launcher. PC users don’t care about singleplayer games enough to download another PC launcher but for multiplayer it’s different especially when there friends are having fun & there force to download the PS PC launcher if they want to have fun. But Sony can’t pull this if they continue releasing singleplayer games on Steam