• Zorque@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    They literally pay for exclusivity. It’s weird that people seem to selectively ignore that every time someone brings up their desire to get free games from them.

      • Maestro@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Epic still has to pay the developers even if they give away the game for free. I’m happy to help bleed Epic dry by taking their free games. But I will never ever spend a single cent on their platform.

        • Rose@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re lying to yourself. They pay a fixed amount for the giveaway and it doesn’t matter if the games are claimed. If anything, you owning a game on Epic means you’re more likely to mention it to your friends and possibly get them to use the platform and spend on it.

          • SRo@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            This. Active usernumbers are more worth to them than the small fee they pay the Devs. Everyone who “just redeems the free games” is helping them actively.

          • Maestro@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            They pay a fixed amount based on expected/average number of units given away. If that number is higher, devs can get more money.

            • Rose@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Can you provide any evidence for this? The documents from the Apple trial showed fixed and round figures for every single giveaway.

              • Maestro@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Yes, but those buyout prices aren’t negotiated in a vacuum. When the number of entitlements goes up, studios will demand higher buyout prices. There’s a reason free game quality has been lackluster lately. Studios demand a higher buyouts and Epic doesn’t want to spend too much money, so they go with smaller titles.

                • Rose@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m pretty sure the prices are based on the projected sales using industry knowledge and tools like SteamSpy, created by Epic’s head of the publishing strategy at the time. It’s not common that a publisher participating in a giveaway would get to use their own figures from a prior giveaway to change the price offered by Epic, while the others’ figures are available only for the games in those leaks. In other words, claiming many copies in the present is extremely unlikely to have any effect on the future buyout prices.

        • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Same If I buy a game it will be either directly from the maker or Steam. Epic strictly for the free games.

    • highsight@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I mean, I get why people hate this, but some games would literally not exist if not for that exclusivity funding. For example, the newly released Alan Wake 2 is completely funded by Epic. I’d say at that point, the exclusivity is fair game.

      • cottonmon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Epic funding games development was only a recent thing. For the most part, they were buying exclusivity for games that were already set to be released or were already in active development. The other reason why this was hated was because they bought exclusivity for games that were crowd-funded back when the store was newly opened.

      • micka190@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        After Control’s success, I’d imagine AW2 still would’ve been made even without Epic’s exclusivity/publishing deal. If anything, Control’s timed EGS exclusivity hurt their numbers until they eventually hit Steam.

        • Rose@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          So your theory is that Control wasn’t a major success on Epic, so Remedy decided to do the same thing with their next game? Sounds legit.

      • CMDR_Horn@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Epic funding games just makes them a publisher, nothing groundbreaking.