The Epic Games Store has seen a strong increase in user numbers over the past six years, reaching an impressive total of 295 million users. However, third-party revenue has not grown at the same pace.
Who’d have thought making things free while making a big noise out of it, taking over what people liked and expected elsewhere, not offering tangible improvement and showing spite towards competition would cause them to not show healthy growth. Also makes me wonder who finances them.
I am curious how much of their growth is attributed to cheaters creating infinite accounts to claim free games so if they get banned on one account they just switch to another one.
Dead By Daylight has this problem where the game was free for like a week on Epic games, and if you play with a cheater in the game (pretty common because the anticheat is nonexistent), its almost always from an Epic account with some random character username.
Whats the point? I’ve got to wrestle the client to play them and my speeds are capped ridiculously low. Steam at least doesnt seem to have a tiny cap on update and game downloads. Though sometimes whatever is hosting workshop can be slow.
I always felt there was promise to a new store with a big backing to challenge Steam. I think Steam is great and it’s my primary PC games store, but I see the concern of only having one real player in the market. But EGS simply hasn’t done it. It feels like they recognized the reasons Steam is such a huge player in the space; it’s not just the library and the sales, but the level of consumer-focused support and features the platform offers. And that’s the key, Steam is a platform, not just a store.
EGS has never become a platform. It’s missing features, it’s social features are anemic, it’s like they put some effort in to get it off the ground and not broken, and then have just hoped giving away free games will somehow magically convince people to spend money there.
I think there’s reasons to be concerned about Steam, but you cannot ignore how broadly consumer friendly the platform is. Their hardware initiatives only highlight what a complete package their ecosystem is and they’re loaded with some of the most consumer-friendly choices in the industry.
EGS is stuck in no-man’s land. Steam is a better platform, GoG is more consumer-friendly. Humble has Choice which can be a good deal. Fanatical does a better job with sales and credit from purchase. EGS just kind of sits in a no-mans land with no compelling features other than you don’t need to spend money to get games, which is great for us but a terrible business strategy for Epic.
The problem is these stores (Epic but also the Microsoft Store and Amazon’s PC game store) only come along because some executive says “hey what if instead of Valve taking a cut from most PC games, we took a cut from most PC games”, there’s 0 interest or intent for them to be competition (as seen by the exclusives) for Steam or improve the developer/user experience.
Any time these massive companies offer a cheaper subsidised alternative to any existing product it’s to push out the smaller players with less resources and build their own monopoly.
Absolutely. It’s also an immense amount of work to get a platform up to a competitive standard with Steam; I’m not sure a small company will ever be able to catch up in any short term time frame.
But stores like Fanatical, GreenManGaming, GameBillet, etc. have the better idea of just being stores that focus on getting customers better deals. They don’t even attempt to edge onto Steam’s turf because a storefront can’t compete with Steam, nor can a half-baked launcher.
Reality is that Valve has functionally a 20 year head start on any company that wants to try and edge in on their turf. So it can’t be done just to get a cut of sales because you’re not going to have the follow-through to build the user base if that’s your reason.
I disagree with your statement. 20 years of head start could also be seen as 20 years of polishing a previously non-existent service. Today Steam’s features are widely known. Just make an app with same or similar features and you’re golden. The blueprint is there!
As an example of “what-could-have-been” I would present Immich which is an alternative to Google Photos and iCloud. Developed by a tiny group of people. It does lack some features that Google Photos/iCloud has. But for the most part it easily could substitute anyone’s photo-storing needs.
If bunch of people with no money in their pocket and only free time off work managed to develop a fully functional, well polished photo app that would rival market giants, why cant market giants make something that would rival Steam?
Comparing a photo app to steam is like comparing basic addition to quantum physics.
The sheer amount of complexity that goes into the business side out side of just the app it self is truly immense.
Steam is more then just an app. It’s entire business empire with years and years of connections, agreements and contracts, secondary services, infrastructure and more.
Even if you managed to clone steam 1:1 you would still have nothing. The app alone is honestly the least important aspect of the entire thing.
Point of my comparison is that even if photo app as good as Google Photos can be recreated with barely any money in the pocket, companies that have pockets full of money could do much more than a simple photo app. Epic has cash to fund a fairly competitive Steam clone. Microsoft is in exact situation and probably has even more money than Epic. Both of them have teams that could do this in a span of a year or so. They are just choosing not to.
Steam is more then just an app. It’s entire business empire with years and years of connections, agreements and contracts, secondary services, infrastructure and more.
Yeah. So is MS and Epic. And they both are older than Valve.
I see your point, but I also think that Steam is so much more than what your example gives. In your case, Steam also has Instagram built in, it has photography forums, it has low-level interfaces to standardize hardware control across multiple camera brands and types, it has a body & lens store, it offers additional software to aid in photo editing, and… and… and…
It’s really an impressive accomplishment what Valve have done with Steam and the hardware/software in its orbit. And that’s not even mentioning all the work that they’ve poured into the open-source community to make Linux a viable gaming platform. Yes, it serves them all in the end, but little of it is easy and it’s all taken a lot of work over the years.
One of the reasons EGS fails is Fortnite in my opinion. In Fortnite they have done all these things: they created a platform with social abilities and all that. Fortnite still brings them lots and lots of money, but this shouldn’t be in Fortnite it should be in their launcher. It could be even more integrated than Steam does. Why not let games grant you skins you can use in other games as a character model (given the game supports it)?
Skins part would work only if that is a game made by Epic and only if they would want to implement it. If we are talking about skins that after purchase are available in every or most games - that will never happen. That idea is dead on arrival. I recall web3 supporters claimed that this will happen and even then everybody laughed at them.
Besides Epic giving out free games, I also have Luna that has weekly free games to claim. They got plenty of good games to claim in Epic Store. Never claimed a single game. Don’t even have Epic Store account and have no will to do so. Fuck Epic. Their business model is shit. They do not want to compete with Valve, they just want to extort them with attraction of free games and release store exclusives.
GoG is generally the better alternative to steam than epic.
Steam isn’t perfect but it works and has a decent consumer oriented service. GoG is doing great with conservation and drm free options but their launcher isn’t amazing.
Pair either with Heroic games launcher or similar for a great experience on almost any OS
A Linux launcher that can be used to launch games from the epic store and others. So, basically a workaround so you don’t need to use the epic launcher.
Its almost like half-assing a store front that runs like shit, lacks the most basic features and is generally perceived to be user-hostile is a bad way to attract business. When the freaking open source Heroic Game Launcher does a better job hooking into Epic’s servers than their own damn launcher its time to do something. Take one of those millions of dollars you rake in every year and actually invest in the platform for cripes sake!
Reduce auto-signouts. This creates friction and forces users to take extra steps to access the game they wish to play. This causes users to go “nah I didn’t really feel like playing that right now anyways”
Embed system requirements for games into the launcher. Users want to know if they can even install a game before clicking install
Show details about a game that a user has clicked on. Seriously if you’re going to give away a hundred free games a year, folks aren’t going to know jack shit about 90% of the indie titles you’re surfacing. Most of the free titles I’ve actually played I’ve played because the marketing screenshots and description sounded cool, and I don’t want to cross-reference between a web browser and a web-browser-wrapped-into-an-executable-that-runs-like-shit-but-installs-my-games-sometimes
SHOW THE GODDAMN DOWNLOAD SIZE AND INSTALL SIZE BEFORE BEGINNING THE DOWNLOAD!!! My god this is not rocket science, its barely even computer science. Its literally the most basic feature of any software installer developed in the last 50 years, show an estimate for about how much hard drive space is needed. If I have 50GB free on a laptop with a 256GB drive in it, its just russian roulette for if I’ll install a game or have to manually sort out my drive being filled to 0 bytes remaining by a game download that never would’ve completed anyways.
Stop forcing updates. If someone’s launching a game that needs an update, let them launch it without updating. Also make it easier to force it to check for updates/apply already released updates. The background polling has entirely missed major game updates for my wife’s Fortnite, and since those can be 30+GB downloads we’d really much prefer to run those updates when she isn’t sitting down to play a bit of Fortnite.
Actually enable user reviews. Yes this requires moderation which requires workhours and therefore money. This is the kind of thing that that 10% cut of all sales you take is supposed to pay for. Users want to know what they’re getting into before buying a game and committing to installing it and trying it out, let them!
Optimize the crap out of your launcher. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can’t be gestures wildly at everything this. Reduce the filesize of the webpages, run a few fewer javascripts, use better image compression, just most importantly make the launcher not run like its full of molasses
The part that annoys me the most is Epic could simple reduce the free games to bi-weekly and rebudget those same dollars into platform improvements and actually create a viable platform that people don’t hate. Just look at Steam, its got some glaring issues (online DRM, massive illegal gambling problems, cyberbullying, unclear & inconsistent policies on adult content, rampant shovelware, etc. etc.) but by not being a pain in the butt to use, and having some decent company policies that aren’t obviously anti-consumer they have an entire fandom devoted to them. Its just wasted potential. If Tim Sweeney felt like it he could actually build an incredible platform and actually compete with Steam, but instead they just engage in the most disjointed corporate bullshit possible
Can’t say I’m surprised by any of this, everything about the guy screamed to me that it would be a shitty experience. They are using purely business things to attract users: paying big for exclusive titles (eg mini monopolies that force interested users to their platform) and giving games away for free. Neither of those require a decent experience, so no shit they cheaped out on that. Those who are just in it for the money are far more likely to end up at a “ah fuck it, it works good enough, ship it” point than someone who wants to build something good, knowing people will come if it’s good enough.
It also makes it obvious that they’ll lean right into the enshitification as soon as they think they have that marketshare captured. So personally, I hope they don’t fix that shit, because it won’t indicate that they are becoming better but just that their strategy and tactics have improved while the end goal remains the same.
And tbf, that end goal might be about control instead of money, so only approved video games can be played. Oh right, they already did that with UT because it might compete with their fortnite cash cow.
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Waiting for them to cut their losses within the next couple years. Sunset the money-losing platform and revoke all the free game licences
Who’d have thought making things free while making a big noise out of it, taking over what people liked and expected elsewhere, not offering tangible improvement and showing spite towards competition would cause them to not show healthy growth. Also makes me wonder who finances them.
Wonder no more, It’s the Chinese Government.
Nah its the parents of iPad kids. Remember, this is the company that owns the biggest game with kids and teens right now, Fortnite.
Epic Games Store is Fortnite morons subsidizing everyone else
Don’t they have Fortnite?
I am curious how much of their growth is attributed to cheaters creating infinite accounts to claim free games so if they get banned on one account they just switch to another one.
Dead By Daylight has this problem where the game was free for like a week on Epic games, and if you play with a cheater in the game (pretty common because the anticheat is nonexistent), its almost always from an Epic account with some random character username.
I dont even login to get the free games anymore. Fuck 'em they aren’t interested in making a good experience.
Same, I don’t even claim the free games anymore
Whats the point? I’ve got to wrestle the client to play them and my speeds are capped ridiculously low. Steam at least doesnt seem to have a tiny cap on update and game downloads. Though sometimes whatever is hosting workshop can be slow.
Heroic Launcher.
Yeah, that’s how I used to claim games but then I gave up. Got rid of that routine
I always felt there was promise to a new store with a big backing to challenge Steam. I think Steam is great and it’s my primary PC games store, but I see the concern of only having one real player in the market. But EGS simply hasn’t done it. It feels like they recognized the reasons Steam is such a huge player in the space; it’s not just the library and the sales, but the level of consumer-focused support and features the platform offers. And that’s the key, Steam is a platform, not just a store.
EGS has never become a platform. It’s missing features, it’s social features are anemic, it’s like they put some effort in to get it off the ground and not broken, and then have just hoped giving away free games will somehow magically convince people to spend money there.
I think there’s reasons to be concerned about Steam, but you cannot ignore how broadly consumer friendly the platform is. Their hardware initiatives only highlight what a complete package their ecosystem is and they’re loaded with some of the most consumer-friendly choices in the industry.
EGS is stuck in no-man’s land. Steam is a better platform, GoG is more consumer-friendly. Humble has Choice which can be a good deal. Fanatical does a better job with sales and credit from purchase. EGS just kind of sits in a no-mans land with no compelling features other than you don’t need to spend money to get games, which is great for us but a terrible business strategy for Epic.
The problem is these stores (Epic but also the Microsoft Store and Amazon’s PC game store) only come along because some executive says “hey what if instead of Valve taking a cut from most PC games, we took a cut from most PC games”, there’s 0 interest or intent for them to be competition (as seen by the exclusives) for Steam or improve the developer/user experience.
Any time these massive companies offer a cheaper subsidised alternative to any existing product it’s to push out the smaller players with less resources and build their own monopoly.
Absolutely. It’s also an immense amount of work to get a platform up to a competitive standard with Steam; I’m not sure a small company will ever be able to catch up in any short term time frame.
But stores like Fanatical, GreenManGaming, GameBillet, etc. have the better idea of just being stores that focus on getting customers better deals. They don’t even attempt to edge onto Steam’s turf because a storefront can’t compete with Steam, nor can a half-baked launcher.
Reality is that Valve has functionally a 20 year head start on any company that wants to try and edge in on their turf. So it can’t be done just to get a cut of sales because you’re not going to have the follow-through to build the user base if that’s your reason.
I disagree with your statement. 20 years of head start could also be seen as 20 years of polishing a previously non-existent service. Today Steam’s features are widely known. Just make an app with same or similar features and you’re golden. The blueprint is there!
As an example of “what-could-have-been” I would present Immich which is an alternative to Google Photos and iCloud. Developed by a tiny group of people. It does lack some features that Google Photos/iCloud has. But for the most part it easily could substitute anyone’s photo-storing needs.
If bunch of people with no money in their pocket and only free time off work managed to develop a fully functional, well polished photo app that would rival market giants, why cant market giants make something that would rival Steam?
Comparing a photo app to steam is like comparing basic addition to quantum physics.
The sheer amount of complexity that goes into the business side out side of just the app it self is truly immense.
Steam is more then just an app. It’s entire business empire with years and years of connections, agreements and contracts, secondary services, infrastructure and more.
Even if you managed to clone steam 1:1 you would still have nothing. The app alone is honestly the least important aspect of the entire thing.
Point of my comparison is that even if photo app as good as Google Photos can be recreated with barely any money in the pocket, companies that have pockets full of money could do much more than a simple photo app. Epic has cash to fund a fairly competitive Steam clone. Microsoft is in exact situation and probably has even more money than Epic. Both of them have teams that could do this in a span of a year or so. They are just choosing not to.
Yeah. So is MS and Epic. And they both are older than Valve.
I see your point, but I also think that Steam is so much more than what your example gives. In your case, Steam also has Instagram built in, it has photography forums, it has low-level interfaces to standardize hardware control across multiple camera brands and types, it has a body & lens store, it offers additional software to aid in photo editing, and… and… and…
It’s really an impressive accomplishment what Valve have done with Steam and the hardware/software in its orbit. And that’s not even mentioning all the work that they’ve poured into the open-source community to make Linux a viable gaming platform. Yes, it serves them all in the end, but little of it is easy and it’s all taken a lot of work over the years.
One of the reasons EGS fails is Fortnite in my opinion. In Fortnite they have done all these things: they created a platform with social abilities and all that. Fortnite still brings them lots and lots of money, but this shouldn’t be in Fortnite it should be in their launcher. It could be even more integrated than Steam does. Why not let games grant you skins you can use in other games as a character model (given the game supports it)?
Skins part would work only if that is a game made by Epic and only if they would want to implement it. If we are talking about skins that after purchase are available in every or most games - that will never happen. That idea is dead on arrival. I recall web3 supporters claimed that this will happen and even then everybody laughed at them.
By going the route exclusives they deliberately avoided being competition and cemented themselves as the early access platform with no features.
Hades was as good as it was because it had a year to be mediocre on EGS first
Revenue increasing by 1.6% is loosing to inflation…
deleted by creator
still quite impressive given all the free games they give away and presumably pay the publishers for…
It’s revenue, so costs don’t matter.
Yep, let’s see how their profit has improved (or not) in that same timeframe.
Oh true 🤦😅
Besides Epic giving out free games, I also have Luna that has weekly free games to claim. They got plenty of good games to claim in Epic Store. Never claimed a single game. Don’t even have Epic Store account and have no will to do so. Fuck Epic. Their business model is shit. They do not want to compete with Valve, they just want to extort them with attraction of free games and release store exclusives.
I only have an account at all because the Witcher III wasn’t in a Steam sale when I bought it.
Not number of users, mind you, that’s the increase in mass of the exact same users.
Makes sense, I have an account because it’s fun to collect the free games even if I never play them, but I can’t see myself spending money there.
GoG is generally the better alternative to steam than epic.
Steam isn’t perfect but it works and has a decent consumer oriented service. GoG is doing great with conservation and drm free options but their launcher isn’t amazing. Pair either with Heroic games launcher or similar for a great experience on almost any OS
What’s Heroic Games Lawnchair?
A Linux launcher that can be used to launch games from the epic store and others. So, basically a workaround so you don’t need to use the epic launcher.
It also runs on windows as well, and has Amazon games integration.
I’ve never even claimed a “free game” from those assholes. Fuck 'em.
Its almost like half-assing a store front that runs like shit, lacks the most basic features and is generally perceived to be user-hostile is a bad way to attract business. When the freaking open source Heroic Game Launcher does a better job hooking into Epic’s servers than their own damn launcher its time to do something. Take one of those millions of dollars you rake in every year and actually invest in the platform for cripes sake!
The part that annoys me the most is Epic could simple reduce the free games to bi-weekly and rebudget those same dollars into platform improvements and actually create a viable platform that people don’t hate. Just look at Steam, its got some glaring issues (online DRM, massive illegal gambling problems, cyberbullying, unclear & inconsistent policies on adult content, rampant shovelware, etc. etc.) but by not being a pain in the butt to use, and having some decent company policies that aren’t obviously anti-consumer they have an entire fandom devoted to them. Its just wasted potential. If Tim Sweeney felt like it he could actually build an incredible platform and actually compete with Steam, but instead they just engage in the most disjointed corporate bullshit possible
Can’t say I’m surprised by any of this, everything about the guy screamed to me that it would be a shitty experience. They are using purely business things to attract users: paying big for exclusive titles (eg mini monopolies that force interested users to their platform) and giving games away for free. Neither of those require a decent experience, so no shit they cheaped out on that. Those who are just in it for the money are far more likely to end up at a “ah fuck it, it works good enough, ship it” point than someone who wants to build something good, knowing people will come if it’s good enough.
It also makes it obvious that they’ll lean right into the enshitification as soon as they think they have that marketshare captured. So personally, I hope they don’t fix that shit, because it won’t indicate that they are becoming better but just that their strategy and tactics have improved while the end goal remains the same.
And tbf, that end goal might be about control instead of money, so only approved video games can be played. Oh right, they already did that with UT because it might compete with their fortnite cash cow.
Some family account would be nice, so you don’t have to have 1 user to share the same game and saves with folk in the same household.
It just doesn’t do the basics right. Junk.
It’s absolutely why people get the free games and don’t go back. It’s just a dreadful experience.
Users are the product