Zen Studios announced that Operencia: The Stolen Sun, its upcoming modern take on the classic dungeon-crawling RPG genre, will release exclusively through the Epic Games store for PC. The game was meant to hit Steam later this year (as there is a Steam store page for it), however – and similarly to other recent games – it will abandon Steam in favour of Epic’s new digital store.
Mel Kirk, Vice President of Publishing said:
“Last month’s Kinda Funny Games Showcase provided us with a great platform to announce Operencia, which was very well received by the RPG community, especially those who participated in the closed beta. The quality of the game caught the eye of our friends at Microsoft and Epic, which quickly led to mutual cooperation that will help us elevate this title in a way Zen would not be able to by ourselves.”
The land of Operencia is described as an unconventional fantasy world where history meets legend – a faraway land referenced in countless Central European folktales told for hundreds of years. For the first time ever, these stories all occur in the context of one single universe. Adding further depth, real-life historical figures populate the game, such as more legendary versions of King Attila and his wife Réka. Locations vary from common fairytale settings (e.g., castles, tombs and forests) to fantastical versions of storied landmarks anyone can physically visit today.
According to the press release, Zen has gone to great lengths to ensure that everything in Operencia: The Stolen Sun feels familiar to RPG players, yet still modern and novel. Through a classic tile-based movement system, players explore the far reaches of the land, engaging in strategic turn-based battles at every turn. The entire quest to free the abducted Sun King, Napkirály – thereby saving Operencia from endless days of night – comes rife with malevolent monsters, devious traps and mind-bending puzzles.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Good.
what so good about it? Right now Epic has no regional pricing, no review system, etc. like steam, I am all for extra choice for different stores, but right now Epic client is not ready and it is doing the worst thing possible, monopoly of products, if it cannot sell it on its own merits then everyone should avoid it.
Right now epic store has none of those features that I never cared about. Can I buy the game ? Yes ? Good. Can I play the game that I bought ? Yes ? Good. Case closed. Does the game being exclusive to the epic store pi$$ off people who are always looking for things to complain about ? Yes ? EVEN BETTER !
I’m with you. It isn’t a big deal. it’s just a very vocal group of old men screaming from their lawns and filthy pirates looking for a reason to come ashore.
Times are changing, like it or not.
Remember that bizzysgs is a self-confessed Sony fanboy zealot and fiercely dedicated console peasant. He rocks up here every now and then for a spot of trolling. Don’t feed the troll. ?
Do you have this comment saved somewhere and just copy paste it every time ?
Oh I didn’t know that, if he’s Sony fanboy then he knows nothing about freedom and try to drag others to the bottom of corporate slavery to match his level.
Precisely. He, as is commonplace with those harbouring deep envy of other people, wishes for everybody to be dragged down to his level so we all feel as miserable as he does.
3,2,1 let the crying begin
Guess they don’t want money.
Guess they want people to pirate their game.
and how much did epic paid?
Given how hard it is to gain visibility on steam, this move, with how much publicity they are getting from doing, it will probably get them more money.
This. I would have probably never even laid eyes on this game in Steam as it would be instantly buried in hot garbage the day it released. Many good games never make it to the surface.
Its amazing how people don’t understand this. Though steam is a bigger platform, because they have 0 curation now the sheer glut of garbage games that comes out, makes it very hard for the cream to get to the top.
Having a huge userbase doesn’t matter if no one sees your game anyway.
Better to have fewer users on Epic but 1/50th of the competition. Plus right now its such a hot button item look at all this free press you get, and a free pile of guaranteed cash from epic.
Currently it would be foolish not to go epic exclusive. Once more games are on their store, and the news frenzy dies down it may be another story.
This is why indy games were doing so well around the launch of PS4, the user base may have been smaller but every game that came out got alot of attention and people were clamoring for something to play.
As of right now on Steam hundreds of games come out almost on a daily basis and as a consumer its impossible to find anything of value unless youre willing to spend hours scrolling through pages and pages of garbage thrown together by weekend warriors.
I know about the game now. I won’t be buying it still. It’s not Steam’s job to advertise your game, that’s down to you or your publisher, Steam is just a store. The front page would be huge if it had to push every game added to it. Silly comment.
Learn how to use Steam’s features. Groups can be very good for keeping on top of new releases.
They could’ve released their games on every platform.
They were probably in this situation.
Option 1:
Put it on both stores (get no exclusive money from epic), also no free publicity for being exclusive like this article. On steam gaining visibility is tough so they may only make a few sales, or it may get huge, regardless its a gamble. On epic they probably get sales because less competition but less potential sales than steam. Overall no guarantee of money and the potential to get few sales on both platforms.
Option 2 (what they chose):
Go exclusive, get a bunch of cash from epic right up front. Get free publicity such as this article thus gaining visibility likely increasing sales. Sure you don’t get steam sales, but steam is so risky anyway its less of a gamble taking the sure money from epic than risking just becoming another game in the pile of unseen games that release on steam daily.
Except they are using Steam for publicity. Can’t support companies that are against consumer choice.
At this point I no longer care, go ahead go , I wont buy it , goodluck selling to 9year old kids of a community lol
Amen.
To a degree im in the same boat, as somebody who used to delve into F2P games at one point i had over 15 launchers for games on my pc, its insane really. Ever since i got my new rig i havent even bothered with anything outside of Steam/Origin/Uplay.
I think ill keep it that way, i dont play that many games now anyway.
All I see is a bunch of babies crying over what is at worst a tiny inconvenience. If you have a PC you can access any of the store and play the games.
The whining from those afraid of change will disappear. Just like it did when all the crying started when Steam launched. It’s just the same sh*t different day.
No, it isn’t “same sh*t, different day”. Name the clients Steam has done this to… Tiny inconvenience? Spare me. Epic’s Store isn’t ready for primetime………. in 2019! That, in and of itself, is a cut above the wrist. Couple everything else going on and the backlash is understandable.
So you enjoy installing, opening 10 launchers for each different game, not to mention fortnite launcher that is an actualy chinese malware lol, goodluck with that logic
The fact is people want to buy their game on their own platform that is STEAM (PC), tell me this, lets say you have ps4 and you want to buy metro exodus on it, but wait they moved that game to ps4 pro and you cant play it on your own chosen by consumer platform. PC doesnt need a console war (that I think its totally stupid and the only ones that get anything from this are big companies not the consumer). PC doesnt need to have 50 launchers for every title. The fact is steam is a huge games client now its been about 15 years, it has community, regulations, privacy, and many more aspects that fortnite cant even begin to comprehend. Its splitting community in 2 or 3 or 4 and many more. The most important thing is no one wants to abandon its library of many games , or leave the huge community. Calling it “tiny inconvenience” is just stupid since the whole purpose of launcher for metro exodus or any other garbage game that goes to die to fortnite launcher is to make more money and not caring for consumer.
Meh . Zen is mainly mobile , not AAA. They overcharge for the pinball games. Wouldn’t call this a big loss for Steam.
fat gabe can no longer being lazy and need to start exercising
Underrated comment.
valve have do A LOT in 2018. new chat? developer new page? wishlist section? a SERIOUS linux game support? STEAM FUKING LINK APP. valve is underrated.
Look at it from their perspective.
Option 1:
Release on epic only.
Get tons of free publicity on sites like this and others.
Get a bunch of free, zero risk, upfront money from Epic.
Likely still get the sales from the dedicated fans that have been tracking your game before this.
Option 2:
Release on both
No free money from epic, no free publicity from game news sites.
Sure steam has more players but of that userbase only a fraction are interested in your game, and of that fraction only a fraction more will see your game because the sheer amount of hot garbage that release on steam daily.
Based on this option 1 was the obvious choice here. Option 2 could result in a lot more sales if the game takes off, but like i said, with how hard it is to gain visibility on steam, its a pure gamble.
it really is good strategy.
screaming like a mong ‘no steam no buy’ is easy, take a minute and think about it
What a pathetic publicity stunt. Now people have finally heard of this game.
I don’t think it’s a publicity stunt, but even if it was, would would a smart move like that be pathetic?
maybe pathetic, but quite a smart move business wise.
People don’t run companies to win merit badges, they run companies to make money.
You seem to be arguing for the company not the customer, it’s a smart move for them not the customer. What does the customer gain for Epic’s Store’s exclusivity over Steam?
None of my arguments / discussions are tied to the question of “is this good for consumers”.
I’ve been responding to people asking, “why wouldn’t they release on both stores” or “this is a bad move they will sell fewer copies on epic”.
I haven’t given my opinion on if this is good for customers or not, simply on why the company likely chose to do this, and how they may make more money doing this than listing on steam.
Epic Games store is getting exposure from this and nothing more. good for them, bad for us. Play your games with not even a 1/4 of the functionally of Steam. Why should I pay £50 for a AAA game on Epic Store?
Epic is benefiting, and zen studios is benefiting (makers of this game).
For customers at the moment, it isn’t beneficial.
Down the line will it be? If valve actually has to reconsider their business model because of this, then maybe so.
They’re not benefiting though. People won’t buy from there and all they’re doing is turning people against them.
I think many more people are willing to buy from epic than you realize.
Cool, we’ll let the data do the talkin’. We heard similar talk when other storefronts entered the scene.
I’m not saying they will succeed, all i’m saying is that stating “people wont’ buy from there” is a bit of an overstatement.
LMAo i love this. Up your game Valve, time to use all the money you earned…
That’s their problem and why they stopped making games. Why work or invest in something when you’re just going to sit back and make 30 percent off everyone elses hard work? If Epic works out they’ll have to act in some way.
We need this people!
“If Epic works out they’ll have to act in some way. We need this people!”
This is the only reason any part of me wants the Epic store to make it. To give Valve some competition. I’m just not a fan of companies that buy market share, and don’t earn it through appealing to customers.
They have a money making machine in Fortnite, and they are buying market share in PC games store now.
Does anyone here honestly think it will be different with Epic, if/when they ever reach a noteworthy portion of market? They are showing their true colours, right out of the gate. These guys, may very well end up being worse than Valve someday.
“I’m just not a fan of companies that buy market share, and don’t earn it through appealing to customers.”
Honestly, considering the way people cling to Steam with their last dying breath, this is the only way anyone is going to get market share. It doesn’t matter what other stores are doing, people are just set in their ways at this point and are refusing change. It kind of has to be forced…and I think you realize that if you think about it. Just look at this comment section.
I think it will be different, not so much because they WANT to be, but because if they do start going toe to toe, each will have to improve in some way to outdo the other. Doing customers and devs right will become a necessity.
TechPowerUp has an interesting Editorial in their News Section about what might happen if Valve gets hit too hard financially from all of this new competition. Check it out if you have a minute.
For now it seems Epic is being aggressive as hell. I think they mean to build their Store Library no matter what.
Valve is absolutely rolling in cash, I’m not sure I’m worried about them.
True. The editorial on TPU wasn’t about Valve being in any real financial danger. It was about Valve possibly being motivated to return to developing some classics like Half Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead games as a revenue source to make up for lost revenue from Steam.
And now Epic have 28 games LOL
Quality might matter in this case… remember that they are investing hard on AAA games like Division 2 and Metro.
Which is exactly the reason they chose to do this. Fewer games means much more visibility.
Again, there is no evidence that this game or any other will sell more because it’s has more “visibility” on Epic’s Games. You seem to be tilting towards Epic games for some reason in every single post without any evidence supporting your claim. plenty of indie games get reported, they also sell millions and you can’t expect them all to get maximum visibility. besides there is something to be said about finding hidden gems on Steam.
And you seem tto think that its possible to prove that you can sell more on one platform vs. another. If this was provable then companies would only sell on that platform 100% of the time.
A company is going to sell on whatever platform is the least risk to them.
I believe this company chose epic because they got some guaranteed money, and because they get more visibility. That may not be the case but those are my guesses as to why they would make this decision.
They wouldn’t have done this if they didn’t think they could make more money by doing so, so i’m simply postulating on how that may be the case.
Nowhere have I said, it’s guaranteed that they will “sell more because it’s has more ‘visibility’ on Epic’s Games” simply that it is a possibility. I’m simply stating these are potential reasons for them having chosen to go exclusive.
I don’t know why you’re quoting something I never said. Quotes are used to quote what someone actually said, what you quoted has been completely made up by you.
You are correct on this I was using quotes here to call attention to certain words and not direct quote. Incorrect usage, I’ll fix that.
I’ve fixed that issue, so i’m curious on your actual rebuttal to my statement though, and not my grammar.
I’ll agree with you it’s a risk by putting their games on Epic’s Store but I’m not convinced by your visibility argument at all because of many reasons why they do or don’t get seen on Steam. As far as I can see, if you buy Indie games or a certain genre of games on Steam then it will recommended them to you and you may even get those “gems” I was talking about.
I called you on your use of grammar because by quoting words I never said you accuse me of saying them when I didn’t, which can greatly affect the flow of the discussion.
Well said.
Yet another dev on my “do not support” list.
Honestly, Valve should teach these devs a lesson and just deny them the ability to sell, because those devs are clearly expecting to make money from them on their own platform a year later. Those devs are leaving not only Steam, but Steam users out in the cold for a whole year. I say screw those devs and their “you owe me money” mentality.
Idiots call us gamers “entitled”, but it’s those devs who think they are entitled to 100% of the revenue, if not more sales from a platform they’ve clearly decided to abandon.
so STEAM should be even bigger a**holes than epic? talk about being vindictive… instead of proactively offering better deals for costumers and devs, developing interesting games, etc…
Talk about not understanding the situation at all….
You could try and explain it to me…
Clearly a gamble by these companies, on the weak backbone of “gamers”. They know Epic’s store is a joke, and the functionality it has, isn’t even in the same realm as Steam.
They also know, that gamers fold like a deck of cards, because they have the will power of a 2 year old, and they know they’ll just follow the bait to wherever it leads.
Pretty sad really. They are laughing in your faces, when you follow their lead.
Steam isn’t automatically entitled to the PC digital store market. They are more than welcome to crush the competition if they want, but that requires effort.
Steam also didn’t hold games hostage exclusively on their store. It was appealing to both customers, and publishers, and that’s how Steam was built.
This here, is just desperation at its finest. They have nothing to offer, so they merely BUY market share, by holding things hostage to their store. Pathetic.
Their relation(game dev and Epic) is consensual, and it’s fine for them to be desperate, they won’t beat Steam by being fair, GOG doubled down on “fairness” and they haven’t got even close to steam…
Exactly. All of this is a “gamble” for these companies. They may make more money than the would have on steam. Or they may lose their butts. But like any business, they weighed risk in both directions, and chose what they felt was the less risky option.
Indeed. Just find it odd how gamers may not make Epic, earn the building of their store, instead, they are rewarding their crappy business practices. Quite a breed they are, “gamers”. 🙂
Good riddance!
My biggest issue with Epic is that they are willing to put money down for all this exclusive dealing but not to continue development of new Unreal Tournament? Or some other first-party exclusive game? Or hell they could pay these studios for developement of some new exclusive third-party games. I would have no beef with that.
Anything but this!
Another game lost to Epic store. I presume there will be more news similar to this. But imagine the money gamers will now save,its off the hook,man! 🙂 Not all,ofc,many will go and buy it on Epic store fore sure. And yeah,this game was on me wishlist,but now,just going to wave it goodby till one day comes to GOG,or Steam.
I’m glad I stopped playing games a few years ago. The entire industry is going insane now.
Looks like Left 4 Dead 3 is on the work.
no steam no buy.
Is this a timed exclusive as well (it says 2020 on Steam page)?
Oh great, now we have console/exclusivity war in PC gaming. Within a decade I’d might have to make dozens of accounts on dozens of stores with dozens of clients. Steam and GoG was more than enough, now we have ambitious competitors desperately trying to disrupt the free market and build a monopoly. Why can’t they just compete each other with better prices and better services, rather than exclusivity and shady deal behind the curtain? And consumers forced to spend their money on a store with uncertain future that might be gone in a decade? I have no problem about Epic games releasing their own games on their own store. Just like how no one hardly complains about Origin and Uplay. But this whole exclusivity war going on is ridiculous. Less choice for consumer, and less competition because it’s exclusive. I’m not exactly a person who loves and likes what Steam is doing, but I ain’t gonna divide my digital library with multiple stores because you can’t be sure what would gonna happen to them in the future. Who knows, decades later, will Epic Store survive? We have several historical examples that digital stores gone and your whole library disappeared like Atari Store.
I don’t care how much Epic and Tencent paid devs, I ain’t gonna spend a dime on a fresh store with precarious future and questionable policies.
I can’t agree more.
Nailed it, this is not legit competition, it’s an attempt to strong-arm the consumer by monopolizing certain titles. The Epic Fail store offers absolutely nothing to the end consumer, they’re not even trying to compete on that front, they’re just poaching publishers in order to force consumers into their platform.
Exactly, the platform itself is miles behind Steam and Epic has shown no interest in competing in that regard. Its sad people consider these kinds of actions as healthy for gaming.
It’s actually worse than a console war since one of the factions (Tencent) belongs to a country (China).
Steam should ban China.
Steam should ban you.
What a comeback.
And they give absolutely no sh*t about your private information. Your information is going to reside in a country that has no laws to protect it. F*k Tencent and f*k China
They have their own Chinese storefront.
No surprise there…
Tencent don’t own Epic Store, Epic Store belongs to Epic Games America. America companies also renown for leaking customers’ private information(like Facebook, PRISM project…etc). So F*k you and f*k America, too :^)
better than giving money to the jews
NOT
Not really. Epic Store/Epic Games also belong to a conuntry(USA), and PS4 belongs to Japan. Nothing special.
That’s not what I meant. Tencent is close to the chinese government. Sony has no ties to the japanese government.
Exactly.
Tencent is a disgusting share-holding company, here’s an exhaustive explanation by A CHINESE GAMER WHO IS PISSED OF HIS OWN COUNTRY:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/862819561/recommended/359550/
Tencent is part of the disgusting communism that rule the chinese country….
“now we have ambitious competitors desperately trying to disrupt the free market and build a monopoly.”
So because you don’t like it it’s not free markitz anymore? steam is’nt the underdog in this fight (tho their lazyness might be deceiving for some)
whats you talking about, i love starting my pc and having to wait for 20 freaking launchers to start up so i can play my various games while all of them are updating at the same time.
You absolutely nailed it. This is exactly the issue.
Though i agree with some parts of this, comparing it to console wars is a bit apples to oranges. Consoles require you invest multi hundreds of dollars in a piece of hardware whereas these require only a free account to use. Your points are valid, but just a different beast than console exclusives / wars.
ATM consoles are at an advantege because they don’t need to subscribe for digital stores other than Microsoft or Sony (debatable if this is a real advantage tho)
It’s actually more dangerous and worse than the console war. Once console is bought, even if the manufacturer ceased their support, you can play your games because you have physical copies. But what would happen to your digital library when Epic Games store is gone?
Console style exclusivity war just does not belongs to PC gaming. It simply does not fit. It can bring disaster in the far future. It can make the products you purchased into volatile.
I didn’t say it wasn’t more dangerous, or that it wasn’t worse. I just said it was different and that comparing it to the console wars is incorrect.
I think you’ll be surprised one day as to how many console games don’t work or half work once you cut that cord. Without their day one patches, most of the games that release these days are rubbish anyway.
That’s what I’ve been thinking for pc and console. Without day 1 patches most of these games will be so damn broken. It absolutely sucks.
Yeah, i do worry about the conservation of games in the future. I mean, how will future libraries of this stuff work, if at all?
Do you realize that this applies to all PC games with DRM tied to a storefront, including Steam?
Never heard of it, didn’t want to play it. Won’t be playing it for sure now. Nothing lost.
I wouldn’t have gotten it even if was only available on Steam. Putting a niche game like this exclusively on Epic Games Store is just moronic.
At the moment its quite genius actually. Do you think this indie game would have gotten any news or any ad space on steam? No it would have just gone to the new release list and likely disappeared like so many before it. By doing this they get free advertising on sites like this, and due to such few games being on epic guarantee they will be seen. For the time being its a genius move for indie devs to use epic, since though steam has a larger more dedicated fanbase, so many games released there means its almost impossible to gain traction. Once games stop making news for being epic exclusives and more games on get on the platform this point will no longer be valid.l
Why not sell on both and let gamers decide where to purchase and play.
It’s possibly because they don’t want Steam to take 30% of their profits. I mean, on a matter of principle alone that 30 cut would hurt.
Except Steam doesn’t take 30% of profits. They take 30% of revenue.
Also, Steam reduces its cut to 25% and then 20% for hugely successful games. GOG takes a flat 30% regardless of sales.
True, but profits are cut back even more because of that.
A cut this game will never see..
30% of sales on Steam is still way more than they’re going to make on Epic store.
And why not, they’re getting access to 100 million customer base and have the best chance of earning the most money with their games, so pay up for it. Game store exclusivity is horrible, it’s anti consumer, digital stores should compete on price and service, not on they only pay 13% only to the store. Ubisoft and EA are no passing on saving to the customer on their store, they don’t pay 30% yet it’s £50 for a AAA game.
I agree that exclusivity is bad. But, if we have to temporarily deal with this to wake Steam up, that I think is O.K. A little suffering for a LOT of good is justifiable here. Especially when the suffering is no more than clicking a different button to launch your game.
Well, I simply refuse to pay £50 for a AAA game and none of these stores are offering it cheaper, zero pricing competition between them.
Is this game even out yet? Give it a little time…
Someone will put it on sale. The more stores you have competing, the higher the chance of finding it on sale.
No because the game will go on sale anyway regardless.
Sure, it will go on sale. But, the more competition the better the sale and the sooner it will happen.
It’s got no reason to go on sale because it’s only on Epics Store.
Gotta smile at his blind and naive optimism.
Unfortunately in the UK that isn’t the case yet. But in the US metro is 10 usd cheaper on the Epic store, so for us at the moment there is price competition. Maybe it will be that way for every location soon.
100 million of which a tiny percentage has any interest in their game. And of that tiny percentage even a smaller percentage are likely to see it amongst the sheer amount of garbage that releases daily. A huge userbase doesn’t necessarily mean huge sales, especially when the competition is 50 or 100 fold greater on steam than epic.
This. Huge userbases only really help when you’re a big publisher/dev or have something really, really special on your hands that just happens to catch the internet’s attention.
That makes no sense, in everything you do you sell to the biggest customer base possible. The reason why these games are going to Epic Store is either they pay a smaller fee or Epic paid them for exclusivity, none of these things benefit the customer.
I think you are underestimating the value of visibility. If you have 100 million users but 100x the competition. Then its smarter to go to a store that has 10 million users instead. Fewer users but so much less competition that a lot more eyes actually see your product.
Still not an argument because if Epic Store got a 100 million users it would lead to the same fictitious issue you seem to be highlighting and Epic would brag about it as well.
I’ve stated in other comments that yes, once it gets to that point it will be the same. But “at this time” it is not the case, so “at this time”, this was a smart move and will likely drive more sales to them.
My comments aren’t tied to some hypothetical future, but what exists currently.
You have no proof about what you’re saying, where is the proof that a game on Epic Store will sell more than on Steam because it has more “visibility” on Epic’s Store?
First :
Steams issue isn’t too many users, its the status of how many bad games are released on steam daily.
This issue is definitely real but is due to games being put on steam with almost 0 moderation or curation so many low quality games are released daily.
On epic currently only curated games are allowed to be sold so much less competition, and much more visibility. Steam used to be this way then they started greenlight etc. and since then the visibility issue has existed.
If epic ever goes to the same no curation model, the issue will exist there as well.
Second:
There is no way to prove how many sales will occur on any platform, obviously. However, this company thinks its less of a gamble going with epic than with steam. Releasing anywhere is a gamble, they obviously feel their chances are better on epic. I bet they feel this way for the reasons I’ve stated.
Also it isn’t 100 million users that has driven steam to have this “fictitious issue” this issue is definitely real but is due to games being put on steam with almost 0 moderation or curation so many sh*t games are released daily.
On epic currently only curated games are allowed to be sold so much less competition, and much more visibility. Steam used to be this way then they started greenlight etc. and since then the visibility issue has existed.
If epic ever goes to the same no curation model, the issue will exist there as well.
They were probably in this situation.
Option 1:
Put it on both stores (get no exclusive money from epic), also no free publicity for being exclusive like this article. On steam gaining visibility is tough so they may only make a few sales, or it may get huge, regardless its a gamble. On epic they probably get sales because less competition but less potential sales than steam. Overall no guarantee of money and the potential to get few sales on both platforms.
Option 2 (what they chose):
Go exclusive, get a bunch of cash from epic right up front. Get free publicity such as this article thus gaining visibility likely increasing sales. Sure you don’t get steam sales, but steam is so risky anyway its less of a gamble taking the sure money from epic than risking just becoming another game in the pile of unseen games that release on steam daily.
It’s not just publicity, they are getting paid for this. Probably not as much as the new Metro game, but it most be a considerate sum
Exactly! Epic is paying the devs while you are not. Guess which customer the’ll please more?
Operencia: The Stolen Sun is yet another game dead on arrival https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1698d772941b243cafe5665f5d7163053bc65c0a9d1beba3378b7da1c28dde80.jpg
How hard is it to sell it on Epic store and steam? it is clear that people will buy it more on steam? that way they will generate more income, but nope, lets generate 88% revenue from those 12 people who bought our game on Epic Store. I calling these devs are nothing but morons.
I have a feeling fewer people really care about this issue than you think. Millions of people are already using the Epic Store.
The internet is having a hissy fit, but that’s normal for any change.
Millions of people only using Epic for fortnite only, those who I know don’t care about Fornite don’t even installed Epic Store.
Lots of people have been playing Ashen. All of those people obviously use the store.
Millions of people only use steam for cs:go & dota.
Now that epic sells games on the platforms, more and more people who play fortnight will use the store every day.
So many games release on steam that its hard for indies to gain any visibility. At the moment the value in going to the Epic store isn’t the cut so much as the free advertising from articles like this, and less competition from the glut of games that release on steam daily.
And what about the indie games are have gained “visibility” and sold millions on Steam?
And what about the thousands of indie games that have been buried in the new releases and sold only a handful of copies?
There seem to be many more that fail on steam than become huge successes.
Both platforms carry their risks, Zen must have thought the epic store was the safer bet.
Hoping your game becomes a smash hit on steam is kinda like hoping you’ll win the lottery. Sure it can happen, but it takes the right combination of quality game / YouTube visibility / and sheer luck for it to happen.
You seem to be single minded and arguing the same thing, it’s Steams fault and it’s a common theme of yours. Games get more visibility via a number of ways on Steam of which you have not even mentioned and Users scores get the game popular.
There is a whole host of ways for users get to see games that they might not know about, like if they brought indie games, others come up as recommended, or they’re tagged. All you seem to be doing in blaming Steam, good games don’t get the attention they deserver and there are many reasons for it.
“There is a whole host of ways for users get to see games that they might not know about” Just gotta point out the contradiction in this statement. If the user doesn’t know about it, then it isn’t actually helping them see games.
I honestly think this “visibility” argument of yours is a marketing trap set by Microsoft and Epic. Oh look we’ve picked a gem of a game out and it’s lost in Steam, bring your game to our platform because we don’t have many games and we need to promote our store.
Marketing trap or not. At the moment, visibility just due to sheer number of products ion steam and the manual curation on epic’s storefront, means visibility is better on epic’s.
Now due to bad UI, and garnering ill will from the community, and some other shady decisions. In the long run this may back fire, and some indie games will likely get shafted. But for the few that get in on the ground floor like this one it will benefit them.
On the other hand, maybe once this hard market share drive is over, and IF epic improves their storefront by a lot.l then maybe the two can co-exist and it will be come a battle of cost instead a battle of exclusives.
But maybe pigs will fly as well.
In all my comments I’ve made 1 core argument
1. Zen may actually make more money by being on the epic store than steam.
Every other argument I’ve made has been in support of this core argument.
These supporting arguments have been
a. A reason they may make more money is because they may get more visibility.
b. A reason they may make more money is because they may have gotten upfront money from epic.
c. The reason they chose to do this is because they perceive less risk from this than releasing on steam, and the (a & b) are likely reasons for this perception.
In support of sub-point a, I’ve explained why visibility is weaker on steam. I haven’t said steam is responsible for all games not doing well, in fact steam does many things amazing, such as reviews. I’ve simply stated that their system of very little curation, has in fact made visibility for new quality games much harder to achieve.
“…our friends at Microsoft and Epic, which quickly led to mutual cooperation”
So Microsoft has a hand in this. They may potentially be acting behind the scenes to help damage Steam using dirty underhand tactics rather than compete honestly via Windows 10 Store alone.
It’d be helpful if the games media were to investigate the matter but I won’t hold my breath because doing so would require some proper journalism.
Exactly, and if it released on steam, that would probably remain the same, you likely would have never even heard of it, or seen it.
But because they did this they get free pr on websites such as this one, and have less competition. This was a genius pr move to gain visibility.
Now you like many others have heard of it so if nothing else are potential sales.
what i see now that epic games is paying publishers to bring there games exclusive for epic store, even with exclusive games they can’t compete valve because there epic store is empty and don’t have games or feature for gamers like a good profile page, community hub, reviews, big discount, achievements, a good workshop page,discussion page and etc. valve have everything in one place also make it easy for every gamers and developers. epic games is doing this not to compete valve. epic games knows they can’t win this competition. but the real reason is to bring pc gamers from steam (which is 99% of them) to epic store to make the players see there stupid fortnite game and download it ( this is indirect marketing thing ). they want steam players to download fortnite by bring them by other games to install there launcher.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0355a4dd5e4cb1467e22c89e431d1aca0af01951a3e7b670a309f633edf6572f.jpg
100% of nothing is $0
Good bye then. I saw an image yesterday showing that you can buy Monster Hunter World from dozens of websites which sell steam keys and there was a good arrange of sales and offers you can choose from… Ashen can be only buy on Epic Store.
It seems some PC gamers wants to go back to the days of GFWL, be my guest, lets go back ten years ago when PC gaming was quickly dying until Steam showed on. BTW when PC gaming were dying, Epic left the boat and they went to do console games, but most of you doesnt remember that.
Oh no! not the game I’ve never heard of!!! Why god why, why must you take the games of a somewhat forgettable quality away from me!
I don’t know why so many people want to kiss Valve’s bottom. Devs simply
see where they are able to retain more of their earned money and choose
the best option. That’s how competition works. It’s Valve’s fault.
I honestly don’t really care about the fact that I have to install all those clients because I use the auto logging feature.
And, for one, I enjoy the prospect of seeing bossy Valve waking up with a hot potato in hand.
Semms like Epic is giving them distribution rights with very small fee compared to Steam. There’s gotta be something that is resulting in publishers opting for the Epic store…