Metro: Exodus sold "2.5x better" in the same period on the Epic Store versus Last Light on Steam

[brownninja97]

steamspy reports last light has sold between 0-20000 sales. 2.5 that is 50k. Honestly not that impressive. 

[S w a t s o n]

1 hour ago, jaggysnake57 said:

what! you really are grasping at straws. it gives a clear indication on how the game is selling.....seriously are you that desperate 

how is it misleading? are you saying its not selling that well? what are your sources? you may want to re read the OP

lmao calm the fuck down

 

I dont need to re-read anything. I'm saying that it probably would have made a similar number of sales if it had released on steam or most likely more sales

[DragonTamer1]

56 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

I really wish people would quit saying this because they're actually not competing. Competition is when the customer makes the choice between buying something from Store X or Store Y. Your version is like saying that Halo competed with the PS4 which makes zero fucking sense Halo is(was) EXCLUSIVELY an Xbox franchise. If you wanted to play it, you were REQUIRED to use Microsoft's hardware/software.

Epic is competing with steam, it may not be how you would like, but they are competing. Using your store comparison, most stores have exclusive products to their store, sometimes store brand sometimes not. This is not an uncommon practice, in fact it's less common for a company to not use this practice in the real world. Even if they are the same, it is marketed differently to make it sound like it is better on their platform. The console comparison is also not an accurate one either because to buy a console exclusive you would have to go out and buy a new console for $300+ and possibly pay for an online subscription, on PC you download a free piece of software and make an account for free. There is a cost of entry to one and not to the other, I wish people would stop making this comparison.

 

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ACTUAL competition would be having the software available on ALL online game store platforms so that the CUSTOMERS would be the ones making the actual decision, not the companies themselves.

In a vacuum, this would work. The internet is not a vacuum, and people in large groups operate under a hive mind aspect. They all move to where their friends are and rarely explore outside their circle. This is what lead Google to be the leader in... well everything, YouTube is the top video platform, Twitch is the top streaming platform, Facebook is the top social media platform. People gravitate towards the group because it's safer to be with the group than to stand out. If it was as easy as make a competing platform and make the games cheaper to compete, doesn't it seem like someone would have done that by now? The reality is most people don't want to leave steam. I have seen countless times a game that is cheaper on another online store and people will just wait and get it on steam, usually because they don't want to be bothered with another launcher. People cannot be trusted to make rational decisions as people are too quick to act on emotion, that's why most TV commercials are trying to play on emotion rather than facts or reasoning.

 

That being said take the example I've given. You are trying to compete with steam, you have two options and both are shit. You can do what I described above, make a new platform that has many of the same features as steam and your games are marginally cheaper on average. You run the very real risk that nobody will join your platform because people don't want to switch and would rather pay the extra $10 to $15 dollars on steam just to have the game with the rest of their library. Your company can no longer afford to operate as you have not been able to gain a significant enough user base to offset cost of operation. You go bankrupt and sell your store to someone like EA or Ubisoft who simply shuts it down.

 

In the second scenario, you make a game store knowing that people are not likely to switch just because your prices are cheaper. Your only real option is to try and get big games exclusively on your platform to entice your user base to join your platform if they want to buy the game on day one. You and your company are going to be the ass end of the internet for a while but you do manage to build a sustainable user base to keep your company from going under and possibly manage to establish it as a viable alternative.

 

These are the two shitty options you are given, compete "fairly" and get stomped by a monopoly or get more aggressive in moving people to your platform. As a businessman you have to pick one.

 

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If this is how you define competition then I guess you're just fine with two ISPs "competing" in a particular zip code when it turns out that one of them only actually services 4 households in the whole zip code...

If they ISP servicing 4 houses is faster then yes, this is competition. You also can't use this analogy for the same reason I stated above, cost of entry verses a free barrier of entry.

 

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https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/epic-says-its-game-store-is-not-spying-on-you/

It literally made a copy of your steam profile and sent it back to Epic notifying the users, let alone asking for their permission for it.

Both Steam and Epic are at fault for this. Epic should not have been scanning this file when there is an API to do the same thing. Trying to distance yourself from the competition is a flimsy excuse. Steam is at fault because if this file is that important, it should have been better protected from scanning in the first place. The fact that it wasn't is either negligence or the file itself is not actually all that useful for anything nefarious. I suspect that it's a bit of both.

 

This is nothing against you, you simply mentioned a lot of the talking points in a single post. I feel that everyone that is being critical of the Epic store should look at the big picture and try to approach the issue from the other side instead of being so quick to criticize. I know that not everyone can do this (this isn't an insult, literally some people are not capable of doing this) but it's better for a productive discussion.

 

I'm not going to be a popular man for making this post, but it's something that I felt needed to be made. I'm largely indifferent on the issue so I don't really care one way or the other. I just wanted to try and bring perspective to the discussion. I am a bit keen to see where EGS goes in the future and if they do become a full fledged competitor to Steam.

[jones177]

2 hours ago, imreloadin said:

How exactly did Steam "lose your account"?

I don't know. 

 

They said I did not have one.

 

Sort of like the Twilight Zone.

[imreloadin]

2 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

The console comparison is also not an accurate one either

It was a comparison of how it's like things are on console in regards to if you want to play a specific game you NEED to use their stuff, which is literally what Epic is doing. Not sure why you bring up the whole cost aspect as that wasn't the point...

2 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

People cannot be trusted to make rational decisions as people are too quick to act on emotion

It's still their decision in the end, are you saying that people shouldn't have a choice?

2 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

This is what lead Google to be the leader in... well everything, YouTube is the top video platform, Twitch is the top streaming platform, Facebook is the top social media platform.

Do you remember the things that came before Google and Facebook? Nobody seems to remember websites like Ask Jeeves and MySpace anymore. Do you know why those websites are no longer in the top spots of their industry? That's because some new business came along and did things differently in a way that people thought was better! You didn't see Facebook paying your friends off to try and get you to switch to them from MySpace did you?

2 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

That being said take the example I've given. You are trying to compete with steam, you have two options and both are shit. You can do what I described above, make a new platform that has many of the same features as steam and your games are marginally cheaper on average. You run the very real risk that nobody will join your platform because people don't want to switch and would rather pay the extra $10 to $15 dollars on steam just to have the game with the rest of their library. Your company can no longer afford to operate as you have not been able to gain a significant enough user base to offset cost of operation. You go bankrupt and sell your store to someone like EA or Ubisoft who simply shuts it down.

I hate to break it to you but that's how business works. The way you make things sound nothing new would ever come about because people just mindlessly slog through what they already have. I like your Facebook example. Remember when MySpace was top dog? What happened to them? Oh yeah, people thought Facebook enabled a better social media platform so everyone jumped ship to them.

2 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

In the second scenario, you make a game store knowing that people are not likely to switch just because your prices are cheaper. Your only real option is to try and get big games exclusively on your platform

Or...just hear me out here...you could actually come up with innovate features that entice people over to your platform! Or at least make sure your feature set is up to par with the competition for gods sake.

2 hours ago, DragonTamer1 said:

The fact that it wasn't is either negligence or the file itself is not actually all that useful for anything nefarious. I suspect that it's a bit of both.

Have you never heard of data mining? Any data is useful data, since Tencent is a backer of Epic I'm pretty sure they know this all too well. I bet they can get a lot of information and create a little "profile" for you based on your Steam data. Gotta know who to offer that sweet sweet Fortnite money to next I guess...

 

29 minutes ago, jones177 said:

I don't know. 

 

They said I did not have one.

 

Sort of like the Twilight Zone.

This sounds like user error if I've ever heard it unfortunately.

[xAcid9]

I bet they even count copies from RTX bundled. 

[DragonTamer1]

37 minutes ago, imreloadin said:

It was a comparison of how it's like things are on console in regards to if you want to play a specific game you NEED to use their stuff, which is literally what Epic is doing. Not sure why you bring up the whole cost aspect as that wasn't the point...

 

 

 

 

 

I brought up the consoles because it sounded like you were touching that subject with your original post, it's also a comparison that I see getting thrown around a lot but as I stated already is not a good comparison because one has a cost of entry while the other does not.

 

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It's still their decision in the end, are you saying that people shouldn't have a choice?

It's still their choice, but as I said, people are more likely to act on emotion instead of logic and reasoning even if it's not the right choice. I've made snap purchases based on emotion, and I've also refused to purchase things based on emotion. Neither of these decisions were based on logic or reasoning but I made them anyway. One ended up being a mistake and the other didn't. You have chosen to not purchase from the Epic store, I've chosen to not care and purchase from them anyway if I really want the game. Keep in mind though that based on some of the numbers we've seen so far, the number of people who are not purchasing are a minority in this situation. This is a decent indication that what EGS is doing is working to some extent.

 

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Do you remember the things that came before Google and Facebook? Nobody seems to remember websites like Ask Jeeves and MySpace anymore. Do you know why those websites are no longer in the top spots of their industry? That's because some new business came along and did things differently in a way that people thought was better! You didn't see Facebook paying your friends off to try and get you to switch to them from MySpace did you?

Before I continue, it's important to note that the internet was very different in the early and mid 2000s when these companies came up. It was easier for a small startup to get recognition and exposure because of how much smaller the internet was at the time and the overall lack of major tech giants. This is why I didn't bother going back that far even to look at the original Steam layout, it is no longer applicable.

 

Facebook is a mega site with over 2 billion users, nearly a quarter of the worlds population. Facebook has two main competitors that have a similar layout to what they do, Google+ (which is getting shut down despite being able to throw untold amounts of money at R&D to try and entice people in), and Telegram which despite being arguably better than Facebook in terms of features, only has on average one twentieth the user base. We can use that as a modern example though as we saw with the Facebook outage they saw a spike in registration. This demonstrates that people will switch platforms when they are more or less forced to but won't do so otherwise.

 

Google came up because it was better than the main competitors at the time, however now we have other search engines that offer unique features that Google doesn't have but most people either haven't heard of them or just don't want to switch platforms because they already use Google for everything.

 

History has shown, like at the height of the industrial revolution, that companies will hold a monopoly until acted upon by an outside force be-it the government or a much more aggressive competitor.

 

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I hate to break it to you but that's how business works. The way you make things sound nothing new would ever come about because people just mindlessly slog through what they already have. I like your Facebook example. Remember when MySpace was top dog? What happened to them? Oh yeah, people thought Facebook enabled a better social media platform so everyone jumped ship to them.

It is immensely difficult for a startup company to get going on the internet because people don't want to wander outside of their comfort zone. As I said above, the early 2000s when these mega tech companies came around the internet was a different place and was still being explored. The number of people who were using the internet was also considerably smaller. Once people fall into a favorable routine they don't want to leave, this is simple human nature. That is why brand loyalty in the real world is a thing. In the real world monopolistic businesses would get broken up by the government but this is much harder to do on the internet outside of breaking up the companies themselves. The internet and the large corporations that live there are a perfect example of what happens when people are left to their own devices. As I've said already there are competitors but nobody is using them because everyone is already somewhere else.

 

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Or...just hear me out here...you could actually come up with innovate features that entice people over to your platform! Or at least make sure your feature set is up to par with the competition for gods sake.

Just like DuckDuckGo and Telegram. Platforms with unique features that have yet to make a mark and are largely unknown in the tech space. Because as I've already said, that doesn't guarantee that people will use your platform. I'll admit that the Epic store doesn't have many of the features of Steam, but for a game store you need one core component that the Epic store does that. Epic has already talked about adding additional features down the road, but I would actually argue that some of steams features are actually trivial. While I'm sure some people use them, it is nothing more than an extra and would help serve as a pro-competitive selling point of Steam.

 

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Have you never heard of data mining? Any data is useful data, since Tencent is a backer of Epic I'm pretty sure they know this all too well. I bet they can get a lot of information and create a little "profile" for you based on your Steam data. Gotta know who to offer that sweet sweet Fortnite money to next I guess...

I have actually followed this, I also looked at the .js file that was talking with the Epic servers. While I don't have an extensive programing knowledge, I know just enough to tell what data it was collecting. It was  collecting web browsing data and EGS browsing data presumably to recommend more games to a user. This is collecting, at worst, the same amount of data that Google is collecting. I don't subscribe to the paranoia that because Tencent is a majority share holder, they are collecting user data for nefarious purposes and I won't subscribe to that until someone shows definitive evidence to support it. I use a Chinese made smartphone, use Chinese made software and play Russian made games. Just because these are not US companies, are you saying I should be paranoid and fearful that they are going to use my data for some sort of political overthrow? I've already had Facebook sell all my data to Russian hackers and I've had Google sell my data to god knows who. Both of these companies had access to considerably more substantial information than one Chinese investment firm is getting.

 

I'll once again state that Epic should not have been skimming that file and Steam should have done more to protect it. Epic should not be tracking what you do during your web browsing, but neither should Google, Facebook or any other site that you visit since pretty much every site tracks you now days even if it's only within their site.

 

The EGS is not perfect, it doesn't have the most admirable business practices and its CEO may not be the most likeable character, but they are doing the most they can with the shitty hand they've been given. You can complain and stamp your feet all you want but it's unlikely they are going to change their actions based on a vocal minority.

[D13H4RD]

Not sure if I can even say they're a minority. 

 

The only thing I know for sure is that the game didn't flop. 

[DragonTamer1]

5 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Not sure if I can even say they're a minority. 

 

The only thing I know for sure is that the game didn't flop. 

In one of the other threads going on right now an indie developer sent an email out that they were switching to Epic and about 1600 people asked for refunds out of the 47,000 or so who had backed it which is about 4% of the customers. I don't know if it's like this for every title but it seems the majority of people just don't care.

[D13H4RD]

6 minutes ago, DragonTamer1 said:

In one of the other threads going on right now an indie developer sent an email out that they were switching to Epic and about 1600 people asked for refunds out of the 47,000 or so who had backed it which is about 4% of the customers. I don't know if it's like this for every title but it seems the majority of people just don't care.

It was 1600 at the time they made the post, for clarification. 

 

It may very well have changed by then. 

[DragonTamer1]

19 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

It was 1600 at the time they made the post, for clarification. 

 

It may very well have changed by then. 

Might have, we'll also need to hear from some other developers as well and see.

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, DragonTamer1 said:

Might have, we'll also need to hear from some other developers as well and see.

More data points would certainly help. 

 

As it stands, there's too little to come to any reasonable conclusion other than how the move to Epic didn't hurt Metro: Exodus to the point of a flop but it could have affected its growth potential, though to what extent is still unknown. 

[Hiya!]

11 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

your point was "epic are claiming that they caused the increase in sales" there not there mearly highlighting that despite the "bad press" it still sold

1 citation please

2 are you telling me steam never fucks up?

1.https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/epic-promises-to-fix-game-launcher-after-privacy-concerns/

 

2.Been using it for a long i'd say no..and even if they had some problem in the past its not as fucked up as EGS

[Mihle]

Did they even say if it's only Epic store sales or if other sales count as well?

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, Mihle said:

Did they even say if it's only Epic store sales or if other sales count as well?

Only EGS sales. That's as far as we know. 

[strajk-]

14 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

how is it misleading? are you saying its not selling that well? what are your sources? you may want to re read the OP

As someone else already pointed out, you're completely missing the point...

It's great that we have more platforms to compete against each other, that way developers/publishers have a wider selection where to release their titles to prevent them from getting fucked over by huge commissions imposed by the platform or lose at sales due to lack of consumer demographic.

 

The issue is doing a press release, in this case, a keynote, where they compare data that's simply not comparable, a hyperbole example would be looking at an increase in incarcerations in Germany and correlating it to the high influx of Syrian Refuges and thus use this as an argument to keep Refuges out, even though if you would look at the data it wasn't Syrians being arrested.

It's essentially a non sequitur.

 

So, now we have to go into why that reference in the keynote was a non sequitur, simply because they're comparing sale data through platforms and with that it's implying that B > A, you can't hint into superiority if there is no way to correlate those since there are a lot of different factors at play that may lead to an increased amount of sales, for example the Metro Series not being as popular back then than now, Exodus being a more fun game than Last Light, the amount of marketing Exodus got in comparison to Last Light, and so on...

 

It would had been ok if they said:

• Exodus sold 2.5x more than Last Light, here is what we did to help our client achieve those numbers

Instead they decided to just ignore all kinds of data and go with:

• Exodus sold 2.5x more on the Epic Store than Last Light on Steam

On this variant the keynote is basically pivoting that it sold more just because it was being sold on the Epic Store.

Now, don't get me wrong, they can do this, but only if that same title was actually being sold on Steam as well.

 

And even on the scenario that it was being sold on both the Epic Store and Steam, lets imagine the title actually didn't sold that well on the Epic Store than on Steam, they could still make a remark how great they are by saying that their clients actually had higher gross revenue by selling on the Epic Store than by selling on Steam, even though on Steam it sold a lot more, this would had been a valid scenario since we both know that Epic charges less of a platform tax per sale than Steam does, thus making the following remark to win even more clients over fair and square:

• Exodus only sold 0.7x on the Epic Store than on Steam, but our Client made 1.25x more profit on the Epic Store than on Steam thanks to our platform policies!

I hope you get now why some people are slightly frustrated with this keynote.

 

As for me, like I said above, the more platforms the better, actual competition in the market to keep the pricing down only benefits us in the end.

The amount of DRM doesn't really bother me as long those platforms have an API to access their library and accounts, if so you could use a 3rd Party Launcher and feed it with your creds of the DRMs of your choice and thus manage your library through that.

[CharminUltraStrong]

I have strong doubts that it being on the Epic store helped it sell better. There was a great video recently that perfectly summarized why Steam is the "preferred" platform among PC gamer's, some would say "superior" but that's dependent on how you view each one. PC Gaming as a whole has grown over the years with decent hardware becoming more and more accessible, education of how cost effective/simple it is to build a PC and the shift to digital downloads over physical copies.

 

Last light released in 2013(6 years ago), people would've been on the new late Kepler GPU's not even Maxwell at this point, and Steams concurrent user numbers have LITERALLY MORE than doubled since then(around 7.5 mill in 2015, nearly 19 million in 2019), not to mention steam had 1.4 billion USD in revenue c.a. 2014 only for it to more than double by 2017 with them raking in 4.3 billion USD by the end of the year. So the 2.5x is hardly indicative considering the game got played to death, many potential players got on different titles AND Exodus has been getting KILLER press. Epic can flaunt the higher revenue for devs all they want but they Epic exclusive games will never get the same community involvement(Fortnite is the only exception since it's an isolated cultural phenomenon not a AAA title).

 

Steam gives devs so many more tools like a legitimate reviewing system that installs confidence in potential buyers, much better system UI (big picture isn't for everybody but it's a dream for people like me that constantly switch back and forth between their TV and monitor), a significantly better community(Epic doesn't even have a community platform really) etc. Many of these complaints could be said about Origin or Uplay, it pains me to say it but Origin runs circles around Epic. Sure the overlay is buggy but it allows me to actually talk to people in an effective manner and lets me easily engage with fellow players.

 

Edit: Apologies for the longggg paragraph but just wanted to summarize my thoughts regarding this.

[DesolationGod]

Saying you sold 2.5x more during the launch window for exodus when compared to last light isnt saying much honestly and really is probably disappointing... Last light was still a relatively unknown IP 6 years ago...Had far less marketing and i wouldnt imagine the original last light sold high numbers on steam on launch window when compared with what you would of expected exodus to sell. The redux version i believe did very well but this wasnt compared to that and sales from the last light game were never released, only that it did better then 2033 which was a complete unknown so not surprising.... Also have to remember, 6 years ago, physical sales were higher then today, that would of taken a cut, i know i played the original metro games on console not steam. SO to compare sales to steam sales is rather silly and not really anything to be proud of given it probably should of and would of sold better without the exclusivity.

[yian88]

16 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

 

 

 

 

the butt hurt

 

im gonna pee

 

 

oh god i cant stop laughing

 

 

 

ok i calm now

 

you all are missing the point, it still sold, people just dont give a shit about "but muh steam"

nope the 2.5x numbers are fake or just RTX sales nonesense not because EGS, also they had a fake cinematic trailer at E3 2017 to buff their hype, last light had a regular trailer, thats the point, the game didnt sell 2.5x better because EGS is great or that steam sucks which developers insinuate 

 

people do give a shit about steam and the sucky, expensive MS Store/EGS games

 

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

That's like saying more kids in school ate lunch this year than the last year. doesn't account for the players grown over franchise, doesn't mean jack shit if it sell twice as much as team last year considering it was not sold at launch at steam this year. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 3/21/2019 at 11:00 AM, jones177 said:

Steams first major exclusive was Fallout NV. The next one was Skyrim. Before those titles I would go to one of the many stores that carried games and installed it from disk.

Steam started the exclusives. That is how they became dominant.

I could make the case that Half Life 2 was the first Steam exclusive since you had to install their client, regardless of how you bought it. But I agree with most of the points you are making.

 

On 3/21/2019 at 3:53 PM, D13H4RD said:

The only thing in my mind is that the game still sold and at least hasn't been negatively affected when taking the increasing popularity into account.

We don't really know that.

On 3/21/2019 at 3:53 PM, D13H4RD said:

But it being limited to one platform has limited its growth. 

We don't know that either.

 

16 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

The only thing I know for sure is that the game didn't flop. 

That we do know indeed, since it's a statement about the absolute number of sales, which is known.

 

Anyway, I think you phrased it perfectly in a later post

[Delicieuxz]

2.5x Last Light's opening sales is nothing. Last Light on Steam outsold Metro 2033 in their opening weeks by more than 3x. And rate of growth from Metro 2033 to Last Light to Exodus likely should be exponential.

 

Last Light also sold more boxed copies in its opening week than Metro 2033 did in its entire lifespan up to that point.

 

PC gaming has become a lot more popular relative to console gaming than it was in 2013, so likely a larger portion of Metro Exodus' players played the game on PC rather than console than did players of Metro Last Light - bolstering the % that PC sales represent of all sales of Metro Exodus.

 

Also, big-title sequels generally make more than their predecessors due to word of mouth, brand recognition, larger development and advertising budgets, and the size of the gaming audience increasing every year.

 

I think it's completely expected that Metro Exodus outsold Last Light by a significant margin, but that there's little or no correlation there to the platform it was on. It's probably that Metro Last Light would have sold even twice as much if it had been on Steam but not on EGS.

 

 

The revenue of the games industry as a whole reportedly doubled in annual revenue between 2013 and 2018.

 

In 2013, the PC gaming industry's worth was an estimated $20.98 billion, with $6.05 billion of that being from non-MMO PC games.

 

 

 

 

In 2018, the PC games industry was worth was an estimated $32.9 billion, without MMO and non-MMO games being distinguished.

 

 

 

 

In 2013, there were around 8 million WoW subscribers. In Q2 2015, the number of WoW subscribers had dropped to 5.6 million - and I think that's the last time Blizzard reported the subscriber count. Don't know if that decline is a trend for all MMOs or not, but if it is then non-MMO PC gaming might account for a larger percentage of 2018's $32.9 billion PC games revenue than non-MMO PC gaming accounted for 2013's $20.98 billion PC games revenue.

 

 

Rephrasing all of that:

 

Quote

 

The EGS exclusive deal for Metro Exodus can be seen to have tangible hurt its sales compared to what it should have done, and Last Light did better than Metro 2033 than Exodus did than Last Light:

 

Metro: Last Light first-week sales surpass 2033 lifetime sales in US

Metro Last Light in 2013 sold more than three times the number of PC copies in its first week what Metro 2033 did 3 years earlier.

 

There was a 3 year gap between Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light. There was a 6 year gap between Metro Last Light (2013) and Metro Exodus (2019).

 

There was a very large growth to the size of the PC gaming market from 2013 to 2019.

 

In 2013, console players constituted a greater % of gamers compared to PC players than they do in 2019. More people buy on PC instead of console in 2019 compared to 2013.

 

Metro Last Light physical sales sold more in its first week than Metro 2033 did in its first 3 years. A lot more people buy digitally in 2019 compared to 2013.

 

There was more Metro series brand recognition and word of mouth influence in 2019 than in 2013.

 

Metro Exodus was probably marketed a lot more than Last Light, to a much larger audience, and had a long advertising and hype period on Steam that Metro Last Light didn't have.

 

Plus, did Sweeney count ME copies that were bundled with new GPUs into his "2.5x" figure?

 

 

I think it's possible that Metro Exodus should have seen exponential sales-growth from Metro 2033 -> Metro Last Light. Yet, despite all its advantages, Metro Exodus sales showed a growth-rate that's lower than Metro 2033 -> Metro Last Light achieved.

Sweeney boasting that Metro Exodus sold more than 2.5 times (a pitiful amount more than LL, when it's looked at in context) on EGS what Last Light did on Steam is very disingenuous, trying to distract people from the details, and is propaganda and con-person speak.

 

Some additional info:

 

In 2013, the PC gaming industry's worth was an estimated $20.98 billion, with $6.05 billion of that being from non-MMO PC games.

 

In 2018, the PC games industry was worth was an estimated $32.9 billion, without MMO and non-MMO games being distinguished.

 

In 2013, there were around 8 million WoW subscribers. In Q2 2015, the number of WoW subscribers had dropped to 5.6 million - and I think that's the last time Blizzard reported the subscriber count. Don't know if that decline is a trend for all MMOs or not, but if it is then non-MMO PC gaming might account for a larger percentage of 2018's $32.9 billion PC games revenue than non-MMO PC gaming accounted for 2013's $20.98 billion PC games revenue.

 

 

[Sauron]

On 3/21/2019 at 1:35 PM, yian88 said:

it sold better because of the RTX fad

No, it didn't, the amount of people who actually bought an RTX card and are willing take the performance hit for raytracing is nothing compared to the increase.

On 3/21/2019 at 1:35 PM, yian88 said:

This is how they manipulate you, there is no bloody way EGS has more users and exposure than Steam thats just fake news.

How they manipulate you into doing what? This is hardly fake news, they're just stating the numbers... unless they're completely made up, which I doubt. They can't just lie to investors about how many copies they sold. They never claimed they had more exposure than Steam.

On 3/21/2019 at 1:35 PM, yian88 said:

Also their prices are waaay higher, standard version is 60 euro in EU but 50$ in US thats just fucking scam, fuck off Epic, then they cry about piracy.

Lol, as opposed to Steam where the price would have been 60 bucks in the US too? Talk about Schadenfreude.

On 3/21/2019 at 1:35 PM, yian88 said:

I cant wait for google Stadia to one up EGS garbage store and all their investment adventure go south.

You sound really angry for no reason... can you show me on the doll where Tim Sweeney hurt you?

On 3/21/2019 at 2:08 PM, WereCatf said:

This is just idiotic. I mean, sure, it sounds good to investors who won't be spending even a second thinking about it any harder, but really, it's entirely misleading. For one, Metro:LL received FAR LESS marketing than Exodus did. Secondly, Exodus received a huge amount of its marketing ON STEAM before it moved to EGS, not on Epic's store or due to Epic's efforts.

I agree, but... they never stated otherwise...? It seems to me people are reading way more into this than was ever there... it's a pretty irrelevant metric as far as judging the performance of the Epic store goes, but that's the extent of its "crimes". On the other hand, sales figures for a game are pretty important to the developer and the investors, regardless of where they sold it.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

I agree, but... they never stated otherwise...? It seems to me people are reading way more into this than was ever there...

They are implying that. They're mostly courting investors with it, as investors are unlikely to fully comprehend all the things in the background and thus the "2.5 times moar!" will sound impressive to them.

 

Marketing-bullshit just tends to tick me off, probably because I can notice it quite easily.

[Sauron]

14 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

They are implying that. They're mostly courting investors with it, as investors are unlikely to fully comprehend all the things in the background and thus the "2.5 times moar!" will sound impressive to them.

 

Marketing-bullshit just tends to tick me off, probably because I can notice it quite easily.

But it is impressive, at least for the developers - and if nothing else, it proves that the Epic store can carry a major third party release without negatively affecting the sales, or at least not by much. If the Steam release sells a similar amount of copies or more in the same amount of time it would be proof of the contrary, but I strongly doubt that will happen. Is it marketing? Sure, but it's not like they're making things up or twisting the facts... it's probably the most harmless form of marketing.