Epic Store Forced Discounts on some Publishers' Games

[YoloSwag]

News came up of Epic's Store sale issues as reported by TweakTown and Kotaku -

 

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Epic's recent mega sale forcibly discounted every game on the storefront over $15. If a game costs more then $15, that game automatically had a $10 discount applied to it on top of the sale price set by the publisher.

[...]

Rather than letting devs and publishers opt out of the store-wide price drops, Epic offered a blanket discount on top of the sale price.

^{Side note: Obviously, it should say "If a game costs more than $15"}

 

So Epic is literally trying to dictate how much the discount ought to be.

 

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As a result, publishers literally started yanking their games from the storefront to avoid the sale. The Epic Store is in such a ramshackle state that entire games have to be pulled from the store if the publisher doesn't agree with the sale price.

That actually sounds like some fine print thing going on. lol

 

By the way, Borderlands 3 and The Division 2 were one of those games that were pulled. So much for Epic Store exclusives.

 

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"If a developer or publisher chooses to not participate in our sales, we will honor that decision. Paradox Interactive has chosen to not participate in the Epic Mega Sale and the game has been temporarily removed from sale,"

Epic Games told Kotaku.

 

During the Epic Mega Sale, developers and publishers are discounting a ton of great games up to 75% off. Also, for every game purchase over $14.99, Epic Games is providing an additional $10 off to players at no cost to the publisher or developer," reads a press release sent out via e-mail.

 

This is probably the most important part of the article -

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If the discount didn't actually impact game sales revenue, then why did so many publishers pull out?

 

 

Also read more about other issues in this thread -

 

[TechyBen]

Oh, So Epic applied the sale to their cut of 12% then? Yes? Yes?

 

Nooooo.

[Shreyas1]

10 minutes ago, YoloSwag said:

 

This is probably the most important part of the article -

 

Quote

 

 

Because it makes the game look less valuable than it is. They will lose out on sales as some people will just wait until the price of the game goes back to the value which it was on sale on.

[illegalwater]

12 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

Because it makes the game look less valuable than it is. They will lose out on sales as some people will just wait until the price of the game goes back to the value which it was on sale on.

Epic: Has a single sale where games are $10 off: "The value of games has been irrevocably destroyed."

Valve: Aggressively pushes sales for the last decade with Steam, creating a culture where many people refuse to buy games until their prices bottom out: *crickets*

[Shreyas1]

4 minutes ago, System32.exe said:

Epic: Has a single sale where games are $10 off: "The value of games has been irrevocably destroyed."

Valve: Aggressively pushes sales for the last decade with Steam, creating a culture where many people refuse to buy games until their prices bottom out: *crickets*

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't valve get permission from the game devs to do so? That's the problem with what Epic is doing right now right?

[illegalwater]

7 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't valve get permission from the game devs to do so? That's the problem with what Epic is doing right now right?

Yes, that's the real problem here. Another thing to add to the giant list of real issues with Epic's platform.

The value of games being negatively impacted however is just another one of the dumb side arguments that has popped up and only serves to distract from the real issues, it's like the "Chinese are spying on us using EGS" bs from earlier this year.

[Unixsystem]

59 minutes ago, System32.exe said:

Epic: Has a single sale where games are $10 off: "The value of games has been irrevocably destroyed."

Valve: Aggressively pushes sales for the last decade with Steam, creating a culture where many people refuse to buy games until their prices bottom out: *crickets*

I've seen this apparent rebuttal posted in multiple threads, yet I haven't seen a single person arguing anything about "destroying the value of games". The complaint is that Epic is putting games on sale against the wishes of the developers, and on top of that their system is so featureless that the only way to opt out is to pull the game from sale entirely. 

 

Imagine going to the supermarket every week after a new sale starts, and finding that any item that wasn't on sale was just flat out not sold during that week. I don't know about you but I wouldn't bother trying to shop at that store for very long. 

[illegalwater]

12 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I've seen this apparent rebuttal posted in multiple threads, yet I haven't seen a single person arguing anything about "destroying the value of games". The complaint is that Epic is putting games on sale against the wishes of the developers, and on top of that their system is so featureless that the only way to opt out is to pull the game from sale entirely.

Scroll up, Shreyas1 was making the harming game value argument, it's also a common argument outside of this forum.

I already said that Epic putting games on sale without approval is the real issue here.

12 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

Imagine going to the supermarket every week after a new sale starts, and finding that any item that wasn't on sale was just flat out not sold during that week. I don't know about you but I wouldn't bother trying to shop at that store for very long. 

Yes, that's an issue too. Where did I say otherwise?

[JZStudios]

Seems kind of amazing that Epic can't just check a "Not for discount" box on certain items. Makes me wonder about their free games, but I'm still going to snag them.

[Dash Lambda]

Well that's a rather profound misstep. Either Epic will learn a lesson here or game publishers will start being weary of them, can't say which though.

 

2 hours ago, YoloSwag said:

^{Side note: Obviously, it should say "If a game costs more than $15"}

That's why people write "[sic]".

[Guest]

I’m so angry I’m actually going to watch the TechLinked about this (never been done before)

[Unixsystem]

1 hour ago, System32.exe said:

Scroll up, Shreyas1 was making the harming game value argument, it's also a common argument outside of this forum.

I already said that Epic putting games on sale without approval is the real issue here.

To be fair, you did wildly exaggerate his comment. All he said was that if games go on sale to a certain price, many people won't want to buy it above that price in the future.

 

While I agree that the Steam sales have largely done the same thing, you very rarely see new games go on sale on Steam, especially AAA games. They may throw a 5% discount on a game that's been out for a few months, but the really big discounts are usually for games that have been out for 6+ months when full priced sales have presumably tailed off.

 

Epic on the other hand is doing blanket discounts on games that aren't even out yet. Why would anyone buy Borderlands at full price when it was already discounted prior to release? 

 

So yes, while I agree that Steam is somewhat guilty of causing the same issue, what Epic is doing has way more potential to harm the value of a game. Not "irrevocably destroy" it, but harm it. That said, the value argument is more of a symptom of how backwards Epic's policies are and how featureless their store is more than anything else. 

[illegalwater]

29 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

To be fair, you did wildly exaggerate his comment. All he said was that if games go on sale to a certain price, many people won't want to buy it above that price in the future.

My bad, I shouldn't have been so hyperbolic

[Noctus]

5 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Seems kind of amazing that Epic can't just check a "Not for discount" box on certain items. Makes me wonder about their free games, but I'm still going to snag them.

They don't even have a shopping cart (was listed as 6+ month goal iirc in their road map ) what makes you think they'd have a "no discount" box lol. 

[Arika]

"we're for developers.....until they are on our platform, then fuck 'em" the paid exclusivity suddenly makes a whole lot of sense...

[AlTech]

17 hours ago, System32.exe said:

Epic: Has a single sale where games are $10 off: "The value of games has been irrevocably destroyed."

Valve: Aggressively pushes sales for the last decade with Steam, creating a culture where many people refuse to buy games until their prices bottom out: *crickets*

On Steam and GOG some games are worth buying at full price and some aren't,

 

I've bought games at full price before if they were worth it and the same goes for DLC if a game does DLC properly.

 

I've also bought games or DLC on sale if I didn't think they were worth the original asking price but still liked them.

 

This has nothing to do with Valve agressively pushing sales.

[Anomnomnomaly]

13 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

While I agree that the Steam sales have largely done the same thing, you very rarely see new games go on sale on Steam, especially AAA games. They may throw a 5% discount on a game that's been out for a few months, but the really big discounts are usually for games that have been out for 6+ months when full priced sales have presumably tailed off.
 

 

It depends on how well received that AAA game was... Because some of them have been so badly panned and are a disgrace to their franchises that they're on at least a 50% of price every few weeks... and have been since about 1-2 months after launch.

 

I keep getting emails telling me they're on sale yet again... still won't buy many of them due their inflated prices.

 

Which brings me to the other argument... that sales devalue the price of games... They don't when games are vastly over priced to begin with, and it's hard to find any that don't come with 0 day DLC along with microtransactions that push the cost even higher.

 

So I make a concious choice, I refuse point blank to pay for unfinished games that have had features removed so they can be sold back to you at inflated prices. I refuse to support companies that will actively add addictive qualities to games that are designed to trigger dopamine responses and con people into spending money they may not want to, or be able to afford too. I've boycotted EA for more than a decade, I refuse to buy anything from Ubisoft that's more than £25-30 inc all DLC (or season pass or whatever they decide to call it in t heir current bait and switch tactics that change from game to game).

 

Game publishers created this problem, not the customer and until EVERYONE votes with their wallets they will continue to screw you all over.

[TechyBen]

16 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

I've seen this apparent rebuttal posted in multiple threads, yet I haven't seen a single person arguing anything about "destroying the value of games". The complaint is that Epic is putting games on sale against the wishes of the developers, and on top of that their system is so featureless that the only way to opt out is to pull the game from sale entirely. 

 

Imagine going to the supermarket every week after a new sale starts, and finding that any item that wasn't on sale was just flat out not sold during that week. I don't know about you but I wouldn't bother trying to shop at that store for very long. 

The actual developers did. Multiple times.

[goodtofufriday]

i dont get it. If the dev didnt lose on any money, since it was at epics expense, why does it matter. 

[JoostinOnline]

2 minutes ago, goodtofufriday said:

i dont get it. If the dev didnt lose on any money, since it was at epics expense, why does it matter. 

I've heard it reported that the developers didn't understand the cost was at Epic's expense. I'm not sure if that's true though.

[GabeThePCHelper]

And all of this time we thought Epic would pull ahead with their store.. seems not and they've lost probably some of the best deals they could have ever gotten.

 

Division 2 and Borderlands 3 are most likely going to be very good games, Division 2 in my opinion already is.

[TVwazhere]

On 5/19/2019 at 12:50 PM, YoloSwag said:

So Epic is literally trying to dictate how much the discount ought to be.

 

By the way, Borderlands 3 and The Division 2 were one of those games that were pulled. So much for Epic Store exclusives.

I hope it gets pulled from the site entirely

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It’s odd that Bloodlines 2 has been completely removed from the Epic store, while it’s still on sale at Steam, of course, while Borderlands 3 remains – although with the latter being an Epic exclusive, it could hardly be completely removed.

 

https://www.techradar.com/news/borderlands-3-and-bloodlines-2-are-pulled-from-epic-games-stores-big-sale

 

[JZStudios]

8 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

On Steam and GOG some games are worth buying at full price and some aren't,

 

I've bought games at full price before if they were worth it and the same goes for DLC if a game does DLC properly.

 

I've also bought games or DLC on sale if I didn't think they were worth the original asking price but still liked them.

 

This has nothing to do with Valve agressively pushing sales.

No Mans Sky is still $60, despite it's colossal failure of a launch and its age now. Even GTAV has been dropped to $30. I suppose conversely the Yakuza PC ports are rather successful and started at $20. I paid full price for that.

I don't buy pretty much any game full price because there's no demos and I think the Steam refund policy is still garbage. And I'm not pirating to demo. At the very least if I buy a physical console game from a store, there's usually a week long refund period, not 2 hours. Even if it is just store credit I could then spend that money on something I'd actually enjoy.

[Unixsystem]

8 hours ago, TechyBen said:

The actual developers did. Multiple times.

I was talking about on this forum. System32 didn't mention anything about the devs. 

[TechyBen]

2 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I was talking about on this forum. System32 didn't mention anything about the devs. 

Aaand?

[edit]

I admit, the consumers may not be, but the games developers are. The risk/reward and the gains/loss is different for each, opposite almost.