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

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, Sauron said:

it proves that the Epic store can carry a major third party release without negatively affecting the sales, or at least not by much.

Actually, it doesn't, which I already explained. If they had compared the numbers to a similarly-hyped AAA-game released in the last 6 months, then the comparison would've been more-or-less apt, but comparing to a game that was released 6 years ago and everything.. It just doesn't actually say anything about this.

 

The only thing they proved was that they can sell an AAA-game. They did not prove anything in either direction about exclusivity affecting sales.

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Actually, it doesn't, which I already explained. If they had compared the numbers to a similarly-hyped AAA-game released in the last 6 months, then the comparison would've been more-or-less apt, but comparing to a game that was released 6 years ago and everything.. It just doesn't actually say anything about this.

Oh come on, it clearly sold well. Could it have sold better? Maybe, but again, it's only a timed exclusive deal and the extra money the developer makes per sale will probably make up for any hypothetical lost sale. LL didn't sell great, but it sold well enough that 2.5 times that is a significant quantity.

19 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

The only thing they proved was that they can sell an AAA-game. They did not prove anything in either direction about exclusivity affecting sales.

They proved that sales didn't tank. There may be no exact number as to what "not tanking" means, but you can't deny it sold well enough.

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Oh come on, it clearly sold well.

Without any actual numbers it's all just projections and smokescreens. There is a reason why they're saying "2.5 times more than.." instead of actual numbers. If you can find actual hard numbers for how many copies Exodus has sold on Epic Store -- not counting Steam-sales or physical copies pre-purchased before the announcement of moving to EGS -- I'll refuse to assign any sort of quantifier as to whether they sold well or not.

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

They proved that sales didn't tank.

That was never the argument in the first place.

[JoostinOnline]

23 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Oh come on, it clearly sold well.

You're arguing different points.

 

The comparison is a non sequitur. It may have sold well, but it selling much better than an old title isn't proof.

[Blademaster91]

43 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Oh come on, it clearly sold well. Could it have sold better? Maybe, but again, it's only a timed exclusive deal and the extra money the developer makes per sale will probably make up for any hypothetical lost sale. LL didn't sell great, but it sold well enough that 2.5 times that is a significant quantity.

If Epic and the developer would have handled it better, the game for sure would have sold better by being on Steam, and an exclusive deal is still exclusive bullsh*t, the developer could have made the money by putting the game on Steam or GOG instead of making a backroom deal and pulling it off Steam right before release. The game "selling well" and their claim of 2.5 times better doesn't really mean anything and that claim is just there to tell investors Epic Games is better because they don't know or care how much worse Epic Games and EGS is for the consumer compared to Steam.

[Andreas Lilja]

Just sell the game on Steam but at a premium like Ubisoft generally does.

[Jito463]

On 3/21/2019 at 4:57 AM, Sauron said:

As for my thoughts on the Epic store, frankly I can't fault them for trying to compete with Steam. Valve is a corporation just like Epic and I don't like them having a monopoly. The exclusivity problem goes beyond the ES or Steam - the problem is DRM. Ideally, every game should be available on every store willing to sell it and independent of the platform you bought it on.

Virtually no one actually wants a monopoly, on this we can agree.  And there is certainly a case to be made for Epic finally providing a viable threat to Steam (I won't call them competition, for reasons to be explained).  Having said that, Steam grew to the position it holds because it earned the trust of both developers and customers.  Epic comes along and, instead of earning our trust, decides to strong arm us into using their service.  That is not the type of "competition" we need.

Quote

This is just Steam getting a taste of their own medicine.

I don't follow.  What "medicine" is Steam (Valve) getting a taste of?

On 3/21/2019 at 9:00 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.

They were not exclusives per se.  While the publisher chose to sell only through Steam (primarily because there really wasn't many good options available for digital distribution at that time), Valve did not coerce or force them into doing so.

Quote

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

No they didn't, see above.

Quote

Nothing comes close to how bad Steam was when it started. They even lost my entire library.  I became a console gamer for many years because of the way they handled it.

On 3/21/2019 at 12:32 PM, jones177 said:

Losing hundreds of dollars in games when they lost my account didn't help with my attitude toward Steam. All I got out of them was " what account" even though they took my money.

Steam has certainly had its share of issues through the years, but you're the only person I've ever met who claimed Steam just "lost" their library.  Others have lost access because of issues such as charge backs, but that's a completely different scenario than the one you're painting.  Methinks there's more to this story than you're saying.

Quote

What is more surprising to me than anything about this is that Valve did not have it in writing that the game must be on Steam at launch. 

Exactly, because Steam doesn't make exclusivity deals.  They never have.  The only exclusives that's ever been on their platform is their own first-party titles (which only makes sense).

Quote

I want the choice back that I had before Steam and I think there is a chance I will get it because non exclusivity deals would be cheaper to make.

Sorry, but you're going to have to explain that one to me.  I'm not following your logic.

On 3/21/2019 at 1:48 PM, 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 **** about "but muh steam"

You know, you've claimed in the past that you're an "old timer" gamer (in another thread), I have a very hard time believing that.  I'd be mildly surprised if you're out of your teens, and completely shocked if you're out of your twenties.  I can't accept that anyone who's been involved in the PC gaming scene as long as you claim to have been, would be shilling this hard for Epic and their ED.

Spoiler

ED as in Exclusivity Deals, not that kind of ED. 

It's been explained to you time and time and time again that the issue isn't about Steam specifically, it's about all other gaming platforms being excluded by these deals that only serve to benefit Epic and the publishers, not the customers who want to buy the games.  Yet you still cling to this notion that it's all about Steam, ignoring all claims and evidence to the contrary.

[ravenshrike]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

Oh come on, it clearly sold well.

Except even at max sales that the 2.5 could represent it at best sold by a bit more than the overall market grew. However when you consider that MMO's have completely tanked in the same period, it probably sold less than the market grew for single player games. When you consider the significantly larger marketing push and the fact that it's a sequel to a well-reviewed game, it's performance is at best a wash.

[D13H4RD]

I think I’ve made my case quite clear at this point.

 

Until there’s more hard evidence, the only thing we know for sure is that the game didn’t flop. Other than that, it’s all just theorizing.

 

There is another piece of evidence though. SteamDB reported that at its peak, 11,942 players were playing Metro: Exodus. 

 

Interestingly, 40% of EGS users don’t use Steam, and 68% don’t use it regularly. Not all that surprising when you consider that many EGS users primarily play Fortnite.

[yian88]

9 hours ago, Sauron said:

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Dont be naive, these people dumped steam the very second they saw cash from Epic. All they are doing by announcing sales that high is forge the idea that it sold good on EGS, not because people like the game, so EGS is good then, remember some statistics show most people dont care about details they read news titles and a few lines maybe.

Screw epic and EGS, this also means no more linux games, first was microsoft crap store that ruined some titles and now EGS, PC was doing well with Steam/GOG,  but with every major publisher making a launcher, and now more crappy stores like MS and EGS fuck em, i have to install and learn 20 launchers, i cant have friends between all of them, shit prices on most stores except steam/gog, and makes the whole PC market fragmented and inconsistent quality between launchers, and no more linux games as i said.

[Chett_Manly]

I think this shows that when the platform is just a free piece of software that anyone can download and use, it does not matter.

 

Downloading it through Steam, downloading it through GoG, downloading it through Origin, downloading it through UPlay, or Downloading it through Epic Game Store, it doesn't matter. The experience is functionally the same, you make an account, you buy the game, you download the game, you play the game. 

[RejZoR]

5 minutes ago, Chett_Manly said:

I think this shows that when the platform is just a free piece of software that anyone can download and use, it does not matter.

 

Downloading it through Steam, downloading it through GoG, downloading it through Origin, downloading it through UPlay, or Downloading it through Epic Game Store, it doesn't matter. The experience is functionally the same, you make an account, you buy the game, you download the game, you play the game. 

No one wants to run 20 stupid launchers. It's already bad enough I need Steam, GOG and Blizzard's one because I also play Overwatch... I hate stupid garbage Origin and same for Epic launcher which is just absolute shit.

[Chett_Manly]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

No one wants to run 20 stupid launchers. It's already bad enough I need Steam, GOG and Blizzard's one because I also play Overwatch... I hate stupid garbage Origin and same for Epic launcher which is just absolute shit.

Oh no its taking up 1/10000th of my drive and I have to scroll past it in the Start Menu, THE HORROR. Seriously, get over it.

[RejZoR]

23 minutes ago, Chett_Manly said:

Oh no its taking up 1/10000th of my drive and I have to scroll past it in the Start Menu, THE HORROR. Seriously, get over it.

No, it's bunch of clients running. I have 32GB RAM but I still can't stand whole fucking tray bar filled with shit I don't need. And if you don't run them permanently they don't update and when they need you'll have to wait for stupid shit to update. So, no, just no. If you like that, be my guest, I don't. And many others as well.

 

Plus, I wouldn't mind it if clients were good. Most of them are just shit and inconvenient as hell. For example Origin is so retarded you can't just reuse game files already on drive and expecting the client to fill in the gaps. No sir, it'll redownload entire fucking thing. Where Steam and GOG do just that. I can format my system every week and spend like 10 minutes setting up Steam by just installing it in same folder on drive D. GOG takes a bit longer because it does redownload some stuff, but majority of files is reused. You just point it to a folder to scan and client does the rest. For Origin you need to manually install every game like it's the first time. I haven't bothered installing Origin for months if not years already because of that. Guess which client behaves the same last time I tried it. Epic...

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, Chett_Manly said:

Downloading it through Steam, downloading it through GoG, downloading it through Origin, downloading it through UPlay, or Downloading it through Epic Game Store, it doesn't matter. The experience is functionally the same, you make an account, you buy the game, you download the game, you play the game. 

Eh, I do more than just download a game and play it. I make quite heavy use of Steam's review-features, for example, and lately, as I've been playing Tropico 6's beta, I've been following the kinds of issues people are reporting in the discussion-forums for it and I've participated a tad myself as well.

 

It's fine if you don't have any use for extra-features, but don't dismiss everyone else who do.

[RejZoR]

These clients are good for games that evolve regularly, like Killing Floor series, Natural Selection 2, Overwatch, CounterStrike etc, the games that are live for several years and receive bunch of important updates that are easily obtained via launcher. Metro Exodus probably won't get many updates so it's almost irrelevant.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

5 hours ago, RejZoR said:

No one wants to run 20 stupid launchers. It's already bad enough I need Steam, GOG and Blizzard's one because I also play Overwatch...

You don't need any client for games bought through GOG.

 

In fact, I wouldn't be buying form GOG otherwise.

[Phentos]

bUt sTeAm nEeDs cOmPetItiOn!

 

Epic Store isn't gonna get any of my money any time soon. The only things that might force my hand is if they actually put effort into creating a decent platform with proper security and consumer-focused features instead of pandering to devs like they seem to be doing. That or if VTM: Bloodlines 2 becomes EGS-exclusive... 

 

Been waiting for that game for a good chunk of my life tbh.

[xAcid9]

6 hours ago, WereCatf said:

Eh, I do more than just download a game and play it. I make quite heavy use of Steam's review-features, for example, and lately, as I've been playing Tropico 6's beta, I've been following the kinds of issues people are reporting in the discussion-forums for it and I've participated a tad myself as well.

 

It's fine if you don't have any use for extra-features, but don't dismiss everyone else who do.

I used Steam Workshop for many games. Glad Steam didn't charge extra for that.

 

If Epic create similar feature it probably will have subscription fee. 

[Delicieuxz]

Recapping some things:

 

There was a 3 year gap between Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light.

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

Metro Last Light physical sales sold more in its first week than Metro 2033 did in its first 3 years.

 

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

There was a large growth to all of PC gaming from 2013 to 2019.

More people buy on PC instead of console in 2019 compared to 2013.

A lot more people buy digitally in 2019 compared to 2013.

There's more brand recognition, word of mouth influence of Metro in 2019 than in 2013.

Metro Exodus had a long advertising and hype period on Steam that Metro Last Light didn't have.

 

 

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 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.

[Master Delta Chief]

9 hours ago, Chett_Manly said:

I think this shows that when the platform is just a free piece of software that anyone can download and use, it does not matter.

 

Downloading it through Steam, downloading it through GoG, downloading it through Origin, downloading it through UPlay, or Downloading it through Epic Game Store, it doesn't matter. The experience is functionally the same, you make an account, you buy the game, you download the game, you play the game. 

Except there are certain platforms out there that are not trustworthy to use, like EGS. Already there have been complaints regarding their security and yet these things are being ignored by the majority of people. I'm not saying other platforms don't have this issue, but since EGS has been in the news quite a lot these days, it should also be something of importance. 

[BirdyTheMighty]

yeah well that 2.5X more sale is a stupid comparison, because the original metro 2033 was not widely known back there as it was an new IP and the PC gaming market was still growing.In retrospect this is all prospective because by the time exodus came out everyone knows what game it is by then because of the previous 2 or 4 releases if you count the redux. Its like the witcher series 

 

Also how much more sale it will get if it aint a exclusive. Epic is just trying to sell its store to devs to join like a sales person would sell you a product  

[jaggysnake57]

On 3/23/2019 at 4:15 AM, Jito463 said:

 

You know, you've claimed in the past that you're an "old timer" gamer (in another thread), I have a very hard time believing that.  I'd be mildly surprised if you're out of your teens, and completely shocked if you're out of your twenties.  I can't accept that anyone who's been involved in the PC gaming scene as long as you claim to have been, would be shilling this hard for Epic and their ED.

 

my first system was a c64 though i never said i was a pc gamer. 

c64 > mega drive > ps1 > ps2 > xbox 360 > pc

im not shilling for there deals im just not as outraged as half the snowflakes here. its really simple like or not epic brings competition to the market. you may not have a choice but devs do and that alone is already shaking up steam. once steam drop there cut, and the will, then the exclusives will stop and the real fun and games begin.

[mr moose]

On 3/24/2019 at 4:08 AM, Chett_Manly said:

Oh no its taking up 1/10000th of my drive and I have to scroll past it in the Start Menu, THE HORROR. Seriously, get over it.

Someone used resources in their reasoning?  Most of the reasons people give for not wanting more launchers are actually reasonable.

 

You need to remember that just because it doesn't bother you doesn't mean it isn't annoying and doesn't have it's effects on other users.

 

 

[Jito463]

3 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

i never said i was a pc gamer

Fair enough, I don't actually recall if you said PC or not.

3 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

you may not have a choice but devs do

Odd, I could have sworn that developers already had other choices.  Hmm, is Steam literally the only digital distribution service in existence apart from Epic?  That can't be right......

Spoiler

Big Honking /Sarc

 

3 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

once steam drop there* cut

So, what would you classify as a justifiable cut for Valve?  20%  15%  Maybe 12% like Epic?  The only problem is, we know that 12% is not enough, because Sweeney has already admitted as such.  This has forced them to pass off charges normally absorbed by services like Steam and GoG, onto the customers instead.  Not here, but in other countries people have found themselves paying additional surcharges that they never had to deal with before.  All so Sweeney can virtue signal and pretend like Valve has been ripping people off with a 30% cut.

 

Personally, I'm of the mind that they could probably cut it to 20% and still turn a profit, but that's just conjecture on my part.  I have no idea what kind of profit margin their data centers run on.  I suspect only Gabe and his finance team know the answer to that one.

 

*their

3 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

then the exclusives will stop and the real fun and games begin

Speculation.  We don't actually know if Sweeney will ever give up on exclusives.  Even if actually he intends to, what if it takes him 10+ years to make sufficient inroads into the market (sufficient by his standards, that is)?  Are we supposed to accept 10+ years of exclusivity deals because "muh competition"?