Metro Exodus Epic Store exclusivity deal made lots of money

mbrodie

Seeing as a bunch of negative stuff seems to continually get posted here when Epic Store does something a small and vocal group of gamers seem to not like, i thought i'd post some positive feedback the Epic store is getting.

Expect to see more of Deep Silver's biggest games get timed exclusivity on the Epic Games Store. metro-exodus-epic-store-exclusivity-deal-made-lots-money_10 Metro Exodus' exclusivity deal on the Epic Store worked out quite well for THQ Nordic. The game not only helped skyrocket earnings by over 500% last year, but was the single best-selling title on all platforms and the biggest release in THQ Nordic's history.

But how much of that revenue came from the Epic Store? Most of it, actually. Previous comments from THQ Nordic's Lars Wingefors said Metro Exodus sold best on consoles and led gamers to believe the Epic deal backfired. That isn't the case. Console still reigns because of combined physical and digital sales, but THQ Nordic actually made more from Metro Exodus on Epic's PC store than it did from digital console revenues.

"The Epic Games store has exceeded our expectations in terms of sales in actual units of both Metro Exodus and Satisfactory during the quarter. Epic Games store is in fact the group's leading digital platform in terms of revenue generated by units sales in the quarter ending March," Lars Wingefors said in an interview with PCGamesN.

Exact earnings or sales figures weren't given, but we've extrapolated just how important Metro Exodus was for yearly earnings. Deep Silver made up 77% of net sales in Q5 driven by Metro Exodus, and accounted for over 60% of yearly sales. The Epic Store's favorable impact on earnings should cement the store as a viable marketplace for the publisher.

Not only does THQ Nordic get to keep 88% of all revenues of games sold on the store, but it must have sold quite a few copies to beat out the combined digital might of the PS4 and Xbox One market (especially given the PS4's massive 98.6 million install base). Deep Silver's future games should be exclusive to the Epic Store on PC. This will likely include hits like Dead Island 2, which may actually release in 2019, as well as Volition's new top secret AAA project that's probably Saint's Row V.

it's great to see that the higher publisher split is a good incentive and working out for publishers / dev teams to go with Epic. Means more money can be invested into future titles!

Edit - Source : https://www.tweaktown.com/news/66031/metro-exodus-epic-store-exclusivity-deal-made-lots-money/index.html

mbrodie

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

if that's what you took away for me congratulating them for a success.. so be it.

Quizar1973

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

Yea....I dont think thats what he was implying here...LOL

Asheram

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

So are you going to refund everyones money for all the games they have purchased and are locked to thos said stores?

MadFrenchie

@SBFord shared data that indicated most gamers don't mind downloading an additional store.

I think this is another situation where the aficionados that frequent gaming sites, being a specific niche of the overall gamer population themselves, were more prone to seeing this negatively than the average gamer.

Quizzical

Arterius said:

 only 2% practice what they preach.

It's not so much a question of gamers not practicing what they preach as of one gamer not practicing what a different gamer preaches.

Quizzical

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

I want the future of gaming to be that buying a game from a game store is about the game, not about the game store.  You decide which game you want, you buy it with minimal fuss about game stores, and the developer gets nearly all of the money with the store just taking enough of a cut for it to be profitable for game stores to still exist.

A future in which it's standard for game stores to get something like a 5% or 7% cut (which must be significantly larger than credit card fees) is a future in which developers generally don't see any reason to offer their own game stores.  That way, it can consolidate to a few established stores that have all of the significant games.  And then they won't see any need to pay developers a bunch of money for exclusives to try to take market share.  Then all of the significant games can be available through all of the stores, as no one is trying to avoid some huge 30% cut on games that reasonably expect millions of dollars in revenue.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Quizzical said:

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

I want the future of gaming to be that buying a game from a game store is about the game, not about the game store.  You decide which game you want, you buy it with minimal fuss about game stores, and the developer gets nearly all of the money with the store just taking enough of a cut for it to be profitable for game stores to still exist.

A future in which it's standard for game stores to get something like a 5% or 7% cut (which must be significantly larger than credit card fees) is a future in which developers generally don't see any reason to offer their own game stores.  That way, it can consolidate to a few established stores that have all of the significant games.  And then they won't see any need to pay developers a bunch of money for exclusives to try to take market share.  Then all of the significant games can be available through all of the stores, as no one is trying to avoid some huge 30% cut on games that reasonably expect millions of dollars in revenue.

Quizzical said:

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

I want the future of gaming to be that buying a game from a game store is about the game, not about the game store.  You decide which game you want, you buy it with minimal fuss about game stores, and the developer gets nearly all of the money with the store just taking enough of a cut for it to be profitable for game stores to still exist.

A future in which it's standard for game stores to get something like a 5% or 7% cut (which must be significantly larger than credit card fees) is a future in which developers generally don't see any reason to offer their own game stores.  That way, it can consolidate to a few established stores that have all of the significant games.  And then they won't see any need to pay developers a bunch of money for exclusives to try to take market share.  Then all of the significant games can be available through all of the stores, as no one is trying to avoid some huge 30% cut on games that reasonably expect millions of dollars in revenue.

Competition in gaming is good. 

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

psiic

Having competition benefits the buying I am very happy having so many different platforms competing now for my money.

Sandmanjw

mbrodie said:

Seeing as a bunch of negative stuff seems to continually get posted here when Epic Store does something a small and vocal group of gamers seem to not like, i thought i'd post some positive feedback the Epic store is getting.

Expect to see more of Deep Silver's biggest games get timed exclusivity on the Epic Games Store. metro-exodus-epic-store-exclusivity-deal-made-lots-money_10 Metro Exodus' exclusivity deal on the Epic Store worked out quite well for THQ Nordic. The game not only helped skyrocket earnings by over 500% last year, but was the single best-selling title on all platforms and the biggest release in THQ Nordic's history.

But how much of that revenue came from the Epic Store? Most of it, actually. Previous comments from THQ Nordic's Lars Wingefors said Metro Exodus sold best on consoles and led gamers to believe the Epic deal backfired. That isn't the case. Console still reigns because of combined physical and digital sales, but THQ Nordic actually made more from Metro Exodus on Epic's PC store than it did from digital console revenues.

"The Epic Games store has exceeded our expectations in terms of sales in actual units of both Metro Exodus and Satisfactory during the quarter. Epic Games store is in fact the group's leading digital platform in terms of revenue generated by units sales in the quarter ending March," Lars Wingefors said in an interview with PCGamesN.

Exact earnings or sales figures weren't given, but we've extrapolated just how important Metro Exodus was for yearly earnings. Deep Silver made up 77% of net sales in Q5 driven by Metro Exodus, and accounted for over 60% of yearly sales. The Epic Store's favorable impact on earnings should cement the store as a viable marketplace for the publisher.

Not only does THQ Nordic get to keep 88% of all revenues of games sold on the store, but it must have sold quite a few copies to beat out the combined digital might of the PS4 and Xbox One market (especially given the PS4's massive 98.6 million install base). Deep Silver's future games should be exclusive to the Epic Store on PC. This will likely include hits like Dead Island 2, which may actually release in 2019, as well as Volition's new top secret AAA project that's probably Saint's Row V.

it's great to see that the higher publisher split is a good incentive and working out for publishers / dev teams to go with Epic. Means more money can be invested into future titles!

Edit - Source : https://www.tweaktown.com/news/66031/metro-exodus-epic-store-exclusivity-deal-made-lots-money/index.html

The whole thing is so full of double speak you can not take anything from it.

Just read the part "Exact earnings or sales figures weren't given" and that is the whole thing .

If what you, or they, were claiming were true...i think we would not have as much double talk...

mbrodie

Sandmanjw said:

mbrodie said:

Seeing as a bunch of negative stuff seems to continually get posted here when Epic Store does something a small and vocal group of gamers seem to not like, i thought i'd post some positive feedback the Epic store is getting.

Expect to see more of Deep Silver's biggest games get timed exclusivity on the Epic Games Store. metro-exodus-epic-store-exclusivity-deal-made-lots-money_10 Metro Exodus' exclusivity deal on the Epic Store worked out quite well for THQ Nordic. The game not only helped skyrocket earnings by over 500% last year, but was the single best-selling title on all platforms and the biggest release in THQ Nordic's history.

But how much of that revenue came from the Epic Store? Most of it, actually. Previous comments from THQ Nordic's Lars Wingefors said Metro Exodus sold best on consoles and led gamers to believe the Epic deal backfired. That isn't the case. Console still reigns because of combined physical and digital sales, but THQ Nordic actually made more from Metro Exodus on Epic's PC store than it did from digital console revenues.

"The Epic Games store has exceeded our expectations in terms of sales in actual units of both Metro Exodus and Satisfactory during the quarter. Epic Games store is in fact the group's leading digital platform in terms of revenue generated by units sales in the quarter ending March," Lars Wingefors said in an interview with PCGamesN.

Exact earnings or sales figures weren't given, but we've extrapolated just how important Metro Exodus was for yearly earnings. Deep Silver made up 77% of net sales in Q5 driven by Metro Exodus, and accounted for over 60% of yearly sales. The Epic Store's favorable impact on earnings should cement the store as a viable marketplace for the publisher.

Not only does THQ Nordic get to keep 88% of all revenues of games sold on the store, but it must have sold quite a few copies to beat out the combined digital might of the PS4 and Xbox One market (especially given the PS4's massive 98.6 million install base). Deep Silver's future games should be exclusive to the Epic Store on PC. This will likely include hits like Dead Island 2, which may actually release in 2019, as well as Volition's new top secret AAA project that's probably Saint's Row V.

it's great to see that the higher publisher split is a good incentive and working out for publishers / dev teams to go with Epic. Means more money can be invested into future titles!

Edit - Source : https://www.tweaktown.com/news/66031/metro-exodus-epic-store-exclusivity-deal-made-lots-money/index.html

The whole thing is so full of double speak you can not take anything from it.

Just read the part "Exact earnings or sales figures weren't given" and that is the whole thing .

If what you, or they, were claiming were true...i think we would not have as much double talk...

it's sad you think they need to disclose actual figures to prove themselves outside of a quarterly sales call.

if they say that sales have exceeded expectation i have no reason not to believe them. They don't gain anything from lying about if their partnership with Epic has been favorable or not, this isn't some kind of conspiracy.

Nilden

Yeah I've been wondering how much Epic paid them to be an exclusive...

AlBQuirky

Quizzical said:

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

I want the future of gaming to be that buying a game from a game store is about the game, not about the game store.  You decide which game you want, you buy it with minimal fuss about game stores, and the developer gets nearly all of the money with the store just taking enough of a cut for it to be profitable for game stores to still exist.

A future in which it's standard for game stores to get something like a 5% or 7% cut (which must be significantly larger than credit card fees) is a future in which developers generally don't see any reason to offer their own game stores.  That way, it can consolidate to a few established stores that have all of the significant games.  And then they won't see any need to pay developers a bunch of money for exclusives to try to take market share.  Then all of the significant games can be available through all of the stores, as no one is trying to avoid some huge 30% cut on games that reasonably expect millions of dollars in revenue.

I would take it one step further and get rid of game store "launchers", having just the store to purchase games. But everyone loves their multitude of launchers, so that will never happen.

As for the game selling well, we all know that internet folks will bitch and moan about anything and everything, then turn right around and support (give money) whatever they're bitching and moaning about. It's human nature.

PS: I'm all for competition, but "exclusivity" is the opposite of competition.

mbrodie

Arterius said:

Nilden said:

Yeah I've been wondering how much Epic paid them to be an exclusive...

I think something I read said it was whatever sales they would lose not being on Steam. So I am guess THQ says we expect to sell 2 million copies on Steam alone and then Epic pays whatever that comes out to be

it's like an agreed amount... THQ says our projected sales are 2 million like what you said...

then if they only sell 1.8 million on Epic, Epic pays the difference in projected sales lost. so they would pay for 200k units.

Palebane

Might be a game i’d be interested in on a steam summer sale.

AAAMEOW

It is just annoying to have to install multiple plateform.  I understand it is business and epic is trying to grab market share...

ChildoftheShadows

MadFrenchie said:

@SBFord shared data that indicated most gamers don't mind downloading an additional store.

I think this is another situation where the aficionados that frequent gaming sites, being a specific niche of the overall gamer population themselves, were more prone to seeing this negatively than the average gamer.

Just like reading MMORPG.com forums to get reviews of Fortnite. Just doesn't work out

hfztt

AAAMEOW said:

It is just annoying to have to install multiple plateform.  I understand it is business and epic is trying to grab market share...

With the amount of money their Chinese overlords have invested into Epic, they are not aiming for "a share". They want domination.

gervaise1

hfztt said:

AAAMEOW said:

It is just annoying to have to install multiple plateform.  I understand it is business and epic is trying to grab market share...

With the amount of money their Chinese overlords have invested into Epic, they are not aiming for "a share". They want domination.

More than they have via the money they have invested in Activision Blizzard ... and others. 

gervaise1

For me the main takeaway is: 

Did Deep Silver have to give this interview? Specifically whilst they - obviously - will want to push their game(s) did they have to talk about Epic Game Store sales? I would be very surprised if there was any obligation to do so.

Which says to me that they were happy with the games sales on Epic. (I wouldn't expect them to talk about revenue nor does it matter in this context.)

Now could Deep Silver have an ulterior motive? Maybe. If sales were "better than expected" then a part of this could be aimed at other developers. For if other devs move to Epic then this will help Epic and pressure Steam (a little). Why they would do this is pretty obvious: revenue split.

anemo

EA has already learned and talked about how little gamers practice what it preaches.   Some of the largest complainers about BF-Heroes monetization, were also the biggest spenders.    This was on their own forums so they could match username email address to user account email addresses.

Which kind of explains why they care so little about a few riled gamers, they probably see it as a predictive feature of the community for how much people will spend.

(Spent a bit of time looking for the article, it was one of the BF Heroes postmortems.   It's just that Gamasutra is such a crap site to search now days.)

______________________

It's the same case here.    The only person needing to use Epic's Store for new "builder game content", or "Story Shooter" content...  Are going to be "VERY HEAVY USERS", there's no other type of player that could have exhausted games they want to play in Steam.    Also there's that whole fact that those complainers spend 30 mins multiple times to go total sperglord over their keyboard, instead of 5 to download a new launcher.

Those super loud complaints and riledness is just a predictive indicator for publishers for how many people are going to be buying something from the Epic store.   Even if 0 complainers bought something, it still predicts how attractive Epic's Launcher is to the more tame "core"/"center" audiences.

Vrika

mbrodie said:

Arterius said:

Nilden said:

Yeah I've been wondering how much Epic paid them to be an exclusive...

I think something I read said it was whatever sales they would lose not being on Steam. So I am guess THQ says we expect to sell 2 million copies on Steam alone and then Epic pays whatever that comes out to be

it's like an agreed amount... THQ says our projected sales are 2 million like what you said...

then if they only sell 1.8 million on Epic, Epic pays the difference in projected sales lost. so they would pay for 200k units.

But if the deal was like that and Metro Exodus sold well, then it means Epic paid nothing.

It would be plausible. I don't think Epic is getting their exclusives because they'd make that good offer, but rather because the devs would need to sell it at 25% higher price on Steam to make same amount of money per unit. Once you go to Epic store it makes sense to skip more expensive Steam completely.

mbrodie

Vrika said:

mbrodie said:

Arterius said:

Nilden said:

Yeah I've been wondering how much Epic paid them to be an exclusive...

I think something I read said it was whatever sales they would lose not being on Steam. So I am guess THQ says we expect to sell 2 million copies on Steam alone and then Epic pays whatever that comes out to be

it's like an agreed amount... THQ says our projected sales are 2 million like what you said...

then if they only sell 1.8 million on Epic, Epic pays the difference in projected sales lost. so they would pay for 200k units.

But if the deal was like that and Metro Exodus sold well, then it means Epic paid nothing.

It would be plausible. I don't think Epic is getting their exclusives because they'd make that good offer, but rather because the devs would need to sell it at 25% higher price on Steam to make same amount of money per unit. Once you go to Epic store it makes sense to skip more expensive Steam completely.

Correct, if it reached it's required units sold Epic pays nothing. Which is why it isn't risky for Epic for one and it's Attractive for the publisher because they are guaranteed at least x amount of $$.

Also why it's completely sustainable as epic as a business to offer these deals.

First off they would have had a business plan in place that says we will spend x amount over x years and see what happens.

Now if games reach quota and they aren't constantly shelling out money to make up the difference because as it's been told time and time again the vocal minority are just that. They can continue to work out timed exclusive deals because at that point they are just making money each time and it's not a gamble at all.

Edit - You gotta remember these businesses aren't stupid, they have metric shitloads of analytical data and hell if a dude can use social media to predict the outcome of elections, you have to sure as hell believe these guys can generate a fairly accurate model of how many expected units they would be looking to sell based off the same sort of data.

2 million was just a number thrown around.. it could have been 6, 8, 10 for all we know.

Asm0deus

Baalzharon said:

I too want to see other stores die, it should be Epic only. No gog, no steam, no ea origins or any of that BS, just epic store. They are the future of gaming.

Haha good one too bad it went right over peoples head...lolz