Epic Made No Money from Its First Wave of Exclusives, Aside from One or Two Titles

[Brian_B]

Does steam even have exclusives? Maybe a few indies who don't have the means to publish their games they just put it on steam. Frankly I don't really give a toss about indie crap, only AAA games.

Depends on how you define AAA game.

If by Big Studio - once upon a time they almost universally released on Steam - even EA - and no other digital platforms. Then they all tried to make their own storefronts. Now they are slowly backing away from that and diversifying their offerings. Square-Enix is still mostly-Steam digital distribution, although not entirely exclusive.

There are still a lot of games that only release on Steam, but that's more so because there isn't a lot of incentive to release on other storefronts - they just don't get huge exposure like Steam does. Steam really got it's start by being the exclusive place to get Half-Life from, after all.

 

[Brian_B]

I didn't buy anything from steam either, and that was my choice. That is what EGS is trying to take away from me. Exclusivity deals need to die, whoever does it.

For this one, you can always offer the developer more money than EGS to not go exclusive - That is really the only way you stop it. I don't get the hangup really, when every single other form of entertainment media does the exact same thing, with both physical and digital media, and it hasn't spelled the death of all entertainment... more storefronts, even with exclusivity, leads to more choice and options ultimately.

But hey - your entitled to your opinion, you've voiced it intelligently and respectfully and I respect that. I don't agree with it, but that's ok. I think it's just an area we have to agree to disagree upon.

 

[MadMummy76]

more storefronts, even with exclusivity, leads to more choice and options ultimately.

No, it just leads to a fragmented market, where nobody wins. Just take a look at streaming.

Everyone was jumping for joy when streaming first started: "Oh, how it will annihilate cable and how much better it is."

I was already warning back then, that everyone will want to start up their own streaming service, and in the end it will be worse than cable, because you have to pay for dozens of services if you want everything you used to have with cable, and it won't even have a common interface as everyone has their own crappy app or player, some of which works on some of your devices, while others not at all.

We are at the point now, where I'd rather torrent the content even for services that I'm subscribed to, because I just can't be dealing with their crap apps and its compatibility issues.

 

[Uvilla]

These discussions confuse me. Why would anyone care if I can buy at Target something I can't buy at Walmart? You want it or not? Fact that its an item that could be sold at Walmart doesn't preclude vendor and retailer discretion.

No, it just leads to a fragmented market, where nobody wins. Just take a look at streaming.

Everyone was jumping for joy when streaming first started: "Oh, how it will annihilate cable and how much better it is."

I was already warning back then, that everyone will want to start up their own streaming service, and in the end it will be worse than cable, because you have to pay for dozens of services if you want everything you used to have with cable, and it won't even have a common interface as everyone has their own crappy app or player, some of which works on some of your devices, while others not at all.

We are at the point now, where I'd rather torrent the content even for services that I'm subscribed to, because I just can't be dealing with their crap apps and its compatibility issues.

Tbh I used to think like this too... However thats is only part of the story. The competition for your streaming dollars has also led to a bonifide glut of contents and a bare knuckle fight to get your dollars. As long as this keeps happening it will stay great. There is no comparison to cable. Cable is ad laden garbage for a ton of money. Cable should be the thing you fall back to when you are broke because the only price it should cost is zero, matter of fact they should probably pay you to have access to your house. Its weird what people put up with only because its been that way.
I think the best thing that may come from the inevitable future of software as service would be several nexflix of games competing for contents. It will lead to a glut of games and an expansion of the market. You don't have to subscribe to all of them all the time.

 

[Brian_B]

No, it just leads to a fragmented market, where nobody wins. Just take a look at streaming.

But if you only have one storefront, how's that any different than every title being exclusive?

Either you have competition and various storefronts (and all that comes with it, good and bad), or you have a monopoly. You can't just say "Well, two is ok, but three is outright too many"